LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE WAY OF LIFE, 



MARKED OCT BY 

SPURGEON, McNEILL, CHAPMAN, 

MILLS, MOODY, 

TALMAGE- 



&& 






strife »WAS\|V^X 



FLEMING H. RBVEM, COMPANY, 
NEW YORK, CHICAGO. TORONTO, 




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1895, 
by Fleming H. Revell Company, in the office of the Librarian 
of Congress, at Washington. 



CONTENTS 



ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME 

G. H. SPURGEON - - - - . - 7 

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 

J. Wilbur Chapman - - - - 23 

THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL 

John McNeill - - - - - 35 

THE GREAT ARBITRATION CASE 

C. H. Spurgeon ----- 51 

AS THEY WENT 

B. Fay Mills - - 69 

NAAMAN THE SYRIAN 

John McNeill 87 

OBEDIENCE 

D. L. Moody .... 103 

THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL 

T. DeWitt Talmage - H7 



AU, THINGS ARE READY: COME. 

BY 
C. H. SPURGKON. 



"A certain man made a great supper, and bade many; 
and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that 
were bidden, 'Come; for all things are now ready.' And 
they all with one consent began to make excuse. The 
first said unto him, 'I have bought a piece of ground, and 
I must needs go and see it. I pray thee have me excused. 
And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, 
and go to prove them. I pray thee have me excused.' 
And another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore 
I cannot come/ 

"So that servant came and shewed his lord these things. 
Then the master of the house being angry said to his 
servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of 
the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, 
and the halt, and the blind.' And the servant said, 
'Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there 
is room.' And the lord said unto the servant, 'Go out 
into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come 
in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you 
that none of those men which were bidden shall taste of 
my supper." 

"Come; for all things are now ready." This invita- 
tion was first of all made to the Jews, but it seems to me 
to have a peculiar appropriateness to ourselves. It is 



8 ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 

later in the day that when first the Lord was here, and 
therefore the supper time is evidently closer at hand. 
The shadows lengthen, the sun of the present dispensa- 
tion is nearing its setting; by nearly nineteen hundred 
years has its day been shortened since first the Lord sent 
forth his servants at supper time. The fulness of time 
for the marriage supper of the lamb must speedily arrive. 
And if all things could be said to be ready even in our 
Savior's day, we may say it with still greater emphasis 
now; for when Jesus delivered this parable the Holy 
Spirit was not given, but Pentecost has now passed, and 
the Spirit of God abideth with us to accompany the 
Word, to fill it with power and to bless our souls as we 
feed upon the truth. Very emphatically then at this 
* time all things are now ready, and the supper awaits the 
guests. I pray you do not begin to make excuses, but 
be prepared to follow us when we bid you come, to go 
with us when we seek to bring you in, or at least to yield 
to our entreaties when with all the sacred violence ot 
love we would compel you to come in. 

INVITATION AND ARGUMENT. 

There are two things clearly in the text, and these 
have a close relation to one another. A plain invitation 
— "Come, "and then a forcible argument — "for all things 
are ready.' ' The argument is fetched from the divine 
preparations, gathered from among the dainty viands of 
the royal feast. "My oxen and my fatlings are killed, 
come to the supper." The readiness of everything on 
God's part is the argument why men should come and 
partake of his grace: and that is the point upon which we 
will dwell at this time — the readiness of the feast of 
mercy is the reason why men should come to it at once. 



ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 9 

GOD NEVER BEHINDHAND. 

It is God's habit to have all things ready, whether for 
His guests or his creatures. You never discover Him to 
be behindhand in anything. When the guests come, 
there is not a scramble to get the table arranged and the 
food prepared, but the L,ord has great forethought, and 
every little point of detail is well arranged. ' 'All things 
are ready.' ' 

It was so in creation. He did not create a single blade 
of grass upon the face of the earth until the soil and the 
atmosphere had been prepared for it, and until the kindly 
sun had learned to look down upon the earth. Imagine 
vegetation without a sun, or without the alternation of 
day and night. But the air was full of light, the firma- 
ment upheld the clouds, and the dry land had appeared 
from out of the sea, and then all things were ready for 
herb, and plant, and tree. Nor did God prepare one 
single creature that hath life, nor fowl that flieth in the 
midst of heaven, nor fish that swimmeth the seas, nor beast 
that moveth on the dry land, until He had prepared its 
habitat, and made ready its appointed food. There were 
no cattle before there were meadows for their grazing; 
no birds till there were trees for there nests, no, nor even 
a creeping insect till its portion of meat had been pro- 
vided. No creature had to wait in hungry mood while 
its food was growing; all things were ready; ready first 
for vegetation, and then afterwards for animal life. As 
for Adam, when God came to make him as his last and 
noblest work of creation, all things were ready. The 
garden was laid out upon the banks of flowing streams, 
and planted with all kinds of trees, the fruits were ripe 
for his diet, and the flowers in bloom for his delight. 



io ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME: 

He did not come to an unfurnished house, but he entered 
upon a home which his Father had made pleasant and 
agreeable for his dwelling. The world was first fitted 
up, and then the man who was to govern that world was 
placed in it. "AH things are ready," the I,ord seems to 
say, "Spring up, O herb yielding seed;" and then "All 
things are ready, come forth, ye roes and hinds of the 
fields!"; and then "All things are ready, stand forth, O 
man, made in mine own image! " 

god's thoughts go before men's comings. 

Now the fact that in the great gospel supper all things 
are ready teaches us that God's thoughts go before men's 
comings. "Come, for all things are ready." Not "If 
you come, all things will be ready," but "they are ready, 
and therefore come. ' ' Grace is first, and man at his best 
follows its footsteps. Long before we ever thought of 
God, He thought of us; yea, before we had a being, and 
ere time itself began, in the bosom of the Eternal, there 
were thoughts of love towards those for whom the table 
of His mercy is now spread. He had planned and 
arranged everything in His august mind from of old, He 
had indeed foreknown and predestinated all the provi- 
sions and all the guests of his supper; all things were 
settled in his eternal covenant and purpose or ever the 
earth was. Never think, oh sinner, that thou canst out- 
strip the love of God. It is at the end of the race before 
thou art at the beginning. God hath completed before 
thou hast begun. His thoughts are before ours, and so 
are His acts, for He doth not say, "All things are planned 
and arranged, " but "All things are ready." Jesus, the 
great sacrifice, is slain, the fountain for our cleansing is 
filled with blood; the Holy Spirit has been given, the 



ALL THINGS ARE READY; COME. n 

word by which wq^are to be instructed is in our hands, 
and the light which will illuminate that sacred page is 
promised us through the Holy Ghost. Things promised 
ought to encourage us to come to Christ, but things 
already given ought to be irresistible attractions. All 
things are already completed by the sacred Trinity before 
we come to cry for mercy; this should make us very 
hopeful and eager in our approaches to the I^ord. Come, 
sinner, come at once; this ought to encourage thee, since 
all that God has to do in thy salvation is done before 
thou hast a thought of Him or turnest one foot towards 
his abode. All welcome! things are ready. Come! 

This also proves how welcome those are who come. If 
you are invited to see a friend, and when you reach the 
place you find the door fast, and after knocking many 
times no one answers, for there is no one at home, you 
reckon that there is some mistake, or that the invitation 
was not a sincere one. Even if your host should come 
to the door and admit you, but should evidently be 
embarrassed, for there is no meal provided and he has 
made no arrangements for your rest at night, you soon 
detect it, and like a wise man you quickly move off some- 
where else, for if you had been welcome, things would 
have been prepared for you. But oh, poor soul, if thou 
comest to God all things are ready for thine entertain- 
ment. 

"Spread for thee the festal board, 
With his richest dainties stored." 

The couch of rest and quietness is prepared for thee. 
All things are ready. How freely doth Jehovah welcome 
thee, how genuine is the invitation, how sincere the 
desire that thou shouldst come to feast with Him, 



12 ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 

I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE #OR YOU. 

One of these days it may be that you and I shall either 
be grown very old, or else disease will lay hold upon us, 
and we shall lie upon the sick bed watching and waiting 
for our Master's coming. Then there shall suddenly 
appear a messenger from Him, who will bring us this 
word, "All things are ready, come unto the supper," 
and closing our eyes on earth, we shall open them in 
heaven and see what He has done who so sweetly said: 
"I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a 
place for you I will come again and receive you unto 
myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Oh I it 
will be a joyous moment when we shall hear the 
summons, "All things are ready, quit thy house of clay, 
thy farm, thy merchandise, and even her who lies in thy 
bosom, for the marriage of the L,amb has come, and thou 
must be there; therefore, rise up, my love, my fair one, 
and come away. The winter is over and past, the time 
of the singing of birds is come for thee. All things are 
ready, come!" 

The perfect readiness of the feast of divine 
mercy is evidently intended to be a strong argu- 
ment with sinners why they should come at once. 

To the sinner, then, do I address myself. 

Soul, dost thou desire eternal life? Is there within 
thy spirit a hungering and a thirsting after such things 
as may satisfy thy spirit and make thee live forever? 
Then hearken while the Master's servant gives thee the 
invitation. "Come, for all things are ready,' ' — all, not 
some, but all. There is nothing that thou canst need 
between here and heaven but what is provided in Jesus 



ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 13 

Christ, in his person and in his work. All things are 
ready, life for thy death, forgiveness for thy sin, 
cleansing for thy filth, clothing for thy nakedness, joy 
for thy sorrow, strength for thy weakness, yea, more 
than all that ever thou canst want is stored up in the 
boundless nature and work of Christ. Thou must not 
say, "I cannot come because I have not this, or have not 
that." Art thou to prepare the feast? Art thou to pro- 
vide anything? Art thou the purveyor of even so much 
as the salt or the water? Thou knowest not thy true 
condition, or thou wouldst not dream of such a thing. 
The great Householder himself has provided the whole 
of the feast, thou hast nothing to do with the provision 
but to partake of it. If thou lackest, come and take 
what thou lackest; the greater thy need the greater reason 
why thou shouldst come where all things that thy need 
can possibly want will be at once supplied. If thou be 
so needy that thou hast nothing good at all about thee, 
all things are ready. What wouldst thou provide more 
when God has provided all things? Superfluity of 
naughtiness would it be if thou wert to think of adding 
to His "all things;' y it would be but a presumptuous 
competing with the provisions of the great King, and 
this He will not endure. All that thou wantest — I can 
but repeat the words — between the gates of hell, where 
thou now liest, and the gates of heaven, to which grace 
will bring thee if thou believest, — all is provided and 
prepared in Jesus Christ the Savior. 

READY. 

And all things are ready, dwell on that word. The 
oxen and the fatlings were killed; what is more, they 



14 ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME; 

were prepared to be eaten, they were ready to be feasted 
on, they smoked on the board. It is something when 
the king gives orders for the slaughter of so many bul- 
locks for the feast, but the feast is not ready then; and 
when beneath the poleaxe the victims fall, and they are 
stripped and hung up ready for the fire, there is some- 
thing done, but they are not ready. It is when the joints 
are served hot and steaming upon the table, and all that is 
wanted is brought forth and laid in proper order for the 
banquet, it is then that all things are ready, and this is 
the case now; at this very moment thou wilt find the 
feast to be in the best possible condition; it was never bet ter 
and never can be better than it is now. All things are 
ready, just in the exact condition that thou needest them 
to be, just in such condition as shall be best for thy 
soul's comfort and enjoyment. All things are ready; 
nothing needs to be further mellowed or sweetened; 
everything is at the best that eternal love can make it. 

now! 

But notice the word "now," "All things are now 
ready* ' — just now, at this moment. At feasts, you know, 
the good housewife is often troubled if the guests come 
late. She would be sorry if they came half-an-hour too 
soon, but half-an-hour too late spoils everything, and in 
what a state of fret and worry she is if when all things 
are now ready, her friends still delay. Leave food at the 
fire awhile, and it does not seem to be "now ready," but 
something more than ready, and even spoiled. So doth 
the Great Householder lay stress upon this, all things are 
now ready, therefore come at once. He saith not that if 
thou wilt tarry for another seven years, all things will 



ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 15 

then be ready; God grant that long before that space of 
time thou mayest have got beyond the needs of persua- 
sion by having become a taster of the feast; but He doth 
say that they are all ready, just now. Just now, that 
your heart is so heavy and your mind so careless, that 
your spirit is so wandering, all things are ready now, 
though you have never thought of these things before, 
though your sins be as the stars of heaven, and your soul 
trembles under an awful foreboding of coming judgment, 
yet "All things are now ready/ ' And if they are ready 
now, the argument is, come now. While the Spirit lingers 
and still doth strive with men, while mercy's gates still 
stand wide open that "Whosoever will may come," while 
life and health and reason still are spared to you and the 
ministering voice that bids thee come can still be heard, 
come now, come at once ! Delay is as unreasonable as it 
is wicked, now that all things are ready. 

Reader, if you do not come to Christ, you will perish, 
but you never will be able to say you were not bidden. 

YOU NKKD NOT WAIT TIIJ, YOU ARK READY. 

This text disposes of a great deal of talk about the sin- 
ner's readiness or unreadiness; because if the reason why 
a sinner is to come is because all things are ready, then 
it is idle for him to say, "But I am not ready.' ' It is 
clear that all the readiness required on man's part is a 
willingness to come and receive the blessing which God 
has provided. Where the IyOrd has been pleased to touch 
the will so that man has a desire toward Christ, where 
the heart really hungers and thirsts after righteousness, 
that is all the readiness wanted. All the fitness He 
requireth is that first you feel you need of Him (and that 



16 ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 

He gives you), and that secondly in feeling your need of 
Him you are willing to come to Him. Willingness to 
come is everything. A readiness to believe in Jesus, a 
willingness to cast the soul on Him, a preparedness to 
accept Him just as He is, because you feel that He is just 
the Savior that you need — that is all; there was no other 
readiness, there could have been none, in the case of 
those who were poor and blind, and halt, and maimed, 
yet came to the feast. The text does not say, "You are 
ready, therefore come," that is a legal way of putting the 
gospel; but it says, "All things are ready, the gospel is 
ready, therefore you are to come." 

WHY DO YOU DELAY? 

Now notice that the unreadiness of those who were 
bidden arose out of their possessions and out of their 
abilities. One would not come because he had bought a 
piece of land. What a great heap Satan casts up between 
the soul and the Savior ! What with worldly possess- 
ions and good deeds he builds an earthwork of huge 
dimensions between the sinner and his L,ord. Some 
gentlemen have too many acres ever to come to Christ ; 
they think too much of the world to think much of Him. 
Many have too many fields of good works in which there 
are growing crops in which they pride themselves, and 
these cause them to feel that they are persons of great 
importance. Many a man cannot come to Christ for all 
things because he has so much already. Others of them 
could not come because they had so much to do, and 
could do it well — one had bought five yoke of oxen, he 
was going to prove them. A strong man quite able for 
ploughing ; the reason why he did not come wats b^caus^ 



ALL THLNGS ARE READY: COME. 17 

he had so much ability. Thousands are kept away 
from grace by what they have and by what they can do. 
Emptiness is more preparatory to a feast than fulness. 
How often does it happen that poverty and inability even 
help to lead the soul to Christ ! When a man thinketh 
himself to be rich, he will not come to the Savior. 
When a man dreameth that he is able at any time to 
repent and believe and to do everything for himself that 
is wanted, he is not likely to come and by a simple faith 
repose in Christ. It is not what you have not, but what 
you have, that keeps many from Christ. Sinful self is a 
devil, but righteous self is seven devils. The man who 
feels himself guilty may for awhile be kept away by his 
guilt, but the man who is self-righteous will never come ; 
until the Lord has taken his pride away from him he will 
still refuse the feast of free grace. The possession of 
abilities and honors and riches keep men from coming to 
the Redeemer. 

But on the other hand personal condition does not 
constitute an unfitness for coming to Christ, for the sad 
condition of those who became guests did not debar them 
from the supper. Some were poor, and doubtless wretched 
and ragged ; they had not a penny to bless themselves 
with, as we say ; their garments were tattered, perhaps 
worse, they were filthy, they were not fit to be near 
respectable people, they would certainly be no credit to 
my lord's table ; but those who went to bring them in 
did not search their pockets, nor look at their coats, but 
they fetched them in. They were poor, but the mes- 
sengers were told to bring in the poor, and therefore 
brought them. Their poverty did not prevent their 
being ready ; and oh, poor soul, if thou be poor liter- 



18 ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 

ally, or poor originally, neither sort of poverty can con- 
stitute an unfitness for divine mercy. 

Another class of them were maimed. One had lost a 
nose, another an arm. So, poor soul, however Satan may 
have torn and lopped thee and into whatsoever condition 
he may have brought thee, so that thou feelest ashamed 
to live — just as thou art, thou may est come to the table 
of grace. Moral disfigurements are soon rectified when 
Jesus takes you in hand. Come thou to Him, however 
sadly thou art disfigured by sin. 

There were others who were halt, that is, their leg was 
no use to them, and they could not come unless they 
had a crutch to crawl upon, nevertheless there was no 
reason why they were not weclome. Ah ! if you find it 
difficult to believe, it is no reason why you should not 
come and receive the grand absolution which Jesus Christ 
is ready to bestow upon you. Lame with doubting and 
mistrusting, nevertheless come and say, "Lord, I believe, 
help Thou mine unbelief." 

Others were blind ; but a blind man can come if a mes- 
senger brings him. All that was wanted was a willingness 
to be led by the hand in the right direction. Now you that 
cannot fully understand the Gospel, that are puzzled and 
muddled, give your hand to Jesus and be willing to be 
led by Him, be willing to believe what you cannot com- 
prehend and to grasp in confidence that which you are 
not yet able to measure with your understanding. 

Here comes a poor man who has had nothing to eat 
for the last forty-eight hours. Look at his eager delight 
at the sight of the food ! If you want somebody to eat 
largely and joyfully, is not he the man? See how he 
takes it in 1 It is wonderful how the provisions dis- 
appear before him 1 Here again is a poor woman who 



ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 19 

has been picked up by the wayside, faint for want of 
bread. She has scarcely any life in her, but see how T she 
begins to open her eyes at the first morsel that is placed 
before her, and what delight there is in her every 
expression as she finds herself placed at a table so richly 
loaded ! Yes, the poorer, the more hungry, the more 
destitute the guests, the more honor is accorded to the king 
who feeds such mendicants, and receives such vagrants to 
his table. Hear how they shout the king's praises when 
they are filled with his meat ! They will never have 
done thanking him. Now, if I address a soul that is very 
needy, very faint, very desponding, you are a fit guest 
for my Master, because you have such a fine appetite for 
His generous repast of love. The greatness of your need 
is your fitness for coming to Christ, and if you want to 
know how to come, come just as you are. Tarry not to 
improve yourself one single atom ; come as you are. 

HOW CAN I COMB TO CHRIST? 

"Ah," you say, "I hear that if I come to Christ I shall 
be saved; but how can I come to Him? What do you 
mean by coming to Jesus? ' ' Well, our reply is plain and 
clear, — it is to trust Christ, to depend upon Him, to believe 
Him, to rely upon Him. You enquire, "But how 
can I come to Christ? In what way would you recom- 
mend me to come?' ' The answer is, the very best way to 
come to Christ is to come with all your needs about you. 

Suppose a physician should come to town and give it 
out that what he wants is not to make money, but to cure 
people out of motives of pure benevolence, without charg- 
ing any fees; the poorest will be welcome and the most 
diseased will be best received. Well, here is a person whg 



20 ALL THINGS ARE- READY: COME. 

has cut his finger; will the doctor rush to attend him? 
Here comes another gratis patient who has a wart on his 
hand. There is nothing famous about curing cut fingers 
and warts, and the physician is by no means excited over 
the work. 

But here is a poor forlorn body who has been given up 
by all the other doctors, a patient who is so bad that he lies 
at death's door; he has such a complication of diseases, 
that he could hardly tell what diseases he has riot suffered 
from, but certainly his condition is terrible enough to 
make it appear hopeless. He seems to be a living won- 
der of disease. That is the man who may come boldly to 
the physician, and expect his immediate attention and 
his best consideration. Now, doctor, if you can cure this 
man he will be a credit to you. This man exactly an- 
swers to your advertisement. You say that you only 
wish for patients who will give you an opportunity of 
displaying your skill. Here is a fine object for your pity, 
he is bad at the lungs, bad at the heart, bad in the feet, 
bad in the eyes, bad in the ears, bad in the head, bad all 
over. If you want an opportunity of showing your skill, 
here is the man. Jesus, my L,ord and Master, is the 
Great Physician of souls, and He heals them on just such 
terms as I have mentioned, Are you a fargone sinner? 
Are you a deeply sinsick soul? Are you a man or woman 
who is bad altogether? Come along, my friend, you are 
just in a right condition to come to Jesus Christ. Come 
just as you are, that is the best style of ''coming." 

"What," saith one, "can you mean it, that I, an unfeel- 
ing, unpenitent wretch, am bidden to come at once 
and believe in Jesus Christ for everlasting life?" I mean 
just that. I do not mean to send you round to that shop 
for repentance, and to the other shop for feeling, and to a 



ALL THINGS ARE READY: COME. 21 

third store for a tender heart, and then direct you to call 
on Christ at last for a few odds and ends. No, no, but 
come to Christ for everything. 

"Come, ye needy, come and welcome, 

God's free bounty glorify; 
True belief and true repentance, 

Every grace that brings you nigh, 
Without money 
Come to Jesus Christ and buy." 

I heard of a shop some time ago in a country town 
where they sold everything, and the man said that he did 
not believe that there was anything a human being wanted 
but what he could rig him out from top to toe. Well, I 
do not know whether that promise would have been car- 
ried out to the letter if it had been tried, but I know it is 
so with Jesus Christ; He can supply you with all you 
need, for "Christ is all." There is not a need your soul 
can possibly have but the Lord Jesus Christ can suppfy it, 
and the very best way to come is to come to Him for every- 
thing. 

Trust Jesus Christ, that is all, just as you are, with all 
your unfitness and unreadiness. Take what God has 
made ready for you, the precious blood to cleanse you, a 
robe of righteousness to cover you, eternal joy to be your 
portion. Receive the grace of God in Christ Jesus, oh ! 
receive it now. God grant you may, for Jesus Christ's 
sake. Amen. 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? 

BY 
J. WILBUR CHAPMAN. 



"Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shaltbe saved.' ' — Acts xvi:30, 31 

The Apostle Paul lived in a perpetual state of revival. 
He had only to come into Philippi, the principal city of 
Macedonia, and to sit by the river bank, and I^ydia, the 
seller of purple, straightway believed and was baptized. 
He had only to walk along the streets to the place of 
prayer, and there was so much of power about him tha 
"a certain damsel, possessed with the spirit of divination* ' 
followed him and cried, saying, * 'These men are the ser- 
vants of the most high God" ; and "Paul being grieved 
turned and said to the spirit, 'I command thee in the 
name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, ■ and he came 
out the same hour; and when her masters saw that the 
hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas 
and drew them into the market place, tore off their clothes, 
beat them with many stripes and cast them into the inner 
prison, fastening their feet in the stocks; but this did not 
in any way affect these servants of God. It was doubt- 
less true for them, as one of the modern poets has expressed, 
"Stone walls did not a prison make, nor iron bars a 
cage," for at midnight, in the midst of all the darkness, 
"they sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard 



24 WHA T M UST I DO TO BE SA VED f 

them." What a strange sound it must have been in that 
old jail, where ordinarily only curses had been heard ! 
But suddenly there came a great earthquake; the foun- 
dations of the prison began to shake and the doors were 
thrown open and "everyone's bands were loosed.' ' In 
the midst of all this confusion the jailer sprang into their 
presence, and was ready to kill himself, thinking the 
prisoners had escaped, when Paul exclaimed, "Do thy- 
self no harm for we are all here." 

There is just in this connection a clear distinction drawn 
between men of influence and men of power; ordinarily 
we say, what the Church needs to-day is men of influence 
meaning by this, men of position; and so it does. But 
from this illustration I think w r e may agree, the greater 
demand is for men of power. 

Paul and Silas had not influence enough to keep them 
out of jail, but they had a power sufficient to pray down 
the prison walls and throw wide open its doors. There is 
also in this whole incident given to us, a true and strik- 
ing picture of what it means for one to be saved. 

If I were an artist, I should like to draw upon a black 
board a great letter "C," then fill out from that one letter 
four words. These four words would present to us not 
only a picture of this Philippian jailer, but also of every 
one who really and truly comes to Christ. 

CONVICTION. 

The first word would be "Conviction." This we 
surely find in the jailer, for we are told "he came tremb- 
ling." It is not possible for any one to be saved without 
first of all experiencing real conviction; however, it ought 
to be suggested that in different individuals it may mani- 
fest itself in different ways. 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED ? 25 

Sometimes it is evidenced in great need. One would 
display his ignorance if he were to assert that Nicodemus, 
for example, was the chief of sinners, for he was a ruler 
of his people, an honored member of the Sanhedrim, a 
most circumspect man in every way; but in his heart 
there was a great sense of a need which his position had 
never satisfied, and this compelled him, I imagine, to 
seek out the Great Teacher. 

If therefore, to-day, there is this feeling in your heart 
that the world does not satisfy, that the pleasures of sin 
prove a mockery, and if with all there is a sense of need 
you have not yet had satisfied, this may be real convic- 
tion. Come to Jesus w 7 ith that need. He alone can help 
you. 

Not infrequently it may assume the form of complete 
unworthiness, such as the poor publican had when he 
said, "God be merciful to me, a sinner; " but the article 
there in the Greek was a definite one, and what he really 
said was this, "God be merciful to me, the sinner; " as 
if he were the only one in the world. This is a most 
hopeful condition. 

But as a rule it is the consciousness that we have sinned, 
and are therefore under condemnation; and in the unre- 
generate state it is the fearfulness that the penalty of the 
broken law may fall upon us; and yet I am quite clear in 
my own mind that there may be a deeper conviction of 
one's sins after one's regeneration than before. 

Stanley tells us that he found men in Africa who never 
knew that they were black until they looked upon a white 
man. So many a man can never know what sin is until 
he sees it in the presence of Jesus Christ. But whatever 
the form of conviction, it must surely be experienced be- 



26 WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED f 

fore the light will dawn. Come to Jesus just as you are, 
for He can satisfy your longings by filling you with Him- 
self and He is able to blot out all your transgressions and 
forgive all your sins. 

CONTRITION. 

The second word starting with the letter "G" would 
be "Contrition." This the Philippian jailer had, for he 
"fell down before them." It is certainly true that one 
cannot come to God without first of all he be possessed of 
a broken and contrite heart. Why should this not be true ? 
We have sinned against God and there must be contrition 
for it if we are to be forgiven. God may be ever so will- 
ing to forgive, still He does not do it without contrition. 

In the state prison of Iowa, there is a young man held 
as a convict against whom the charge of arson stands ? 
and also the attempt to kill. Very recently the party 
whose building was fired circulated a petition that the 
young man should be pardoned. The man whose life was 
attempted followed his example and succeeded in securing 
the names of the judge by whom he was sentenced, the 
attorney who prosecuted him and the entire jury which 
found him guilty. This petition was carried to the gov- 
ernor. In the face of it, strong as it was, he said, "No, 
the man cannot be pardoned; for/' said he, "his crime 
was not committed against the individual but against the 
commonwealth of Iowa, and he must serve his sentence. 1 ? 
And it ought to be remembered by the sinner that these 
words are true, "against Thee and Thee only have I 
sinned.' ' So there must be contrition, or there cannot be 
salvation; and yet what a marvelous thing it is that if one 
be ever so great a sinner the moment this spirit is mani- 
fest, God blots out all his transgressions. 



WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED f 27 

It is stated that in St. Petersburg a father's heart 
was well-nigh broken because of the prodigality of his son 
who was addicted to the habit of gambling, and with that 
came the accompanying vices. At last the old father 
conceived the idea that what the boy needed was better 
surroundings, and so he set out to secure them. What 
a mistake this is, and how many have made itl That is 
not what you need. 

The other day a woman was seated in Central Park, 
New York, with her little child playing about her, when 
suddenly she was startled by the shrieking of the little 
one. She had been frightened by the barking of a dog 
and sprang into her mother's arms, who sought to com- 
fort her by saying: "The dog has ceased his barking, 
why are you afraid ?" The child only sobbed out, "Oh 
but, Mamma, the bark is still in him." And this is true 
of men in sin. The bark is still in them, and what they 
need is not new surroundings, but a new nature. This 
comes only from above and can be received only by 
faith. 

So this father of whom I speak, secured his son's 
appointment in the army, but in this position he went 
from bad to worse, until he had reached the end of it all; 
and completely discouraged he was casting up his 
accounts and when the overwhelming figure was known, 
in great desperation he wrote at the bottom of the column 
these words, "Who is to pay all this ?" 

The emperor of Russia, as was his habit, going 
through the barracks to inspect the soldiers passed this 
young man, who with his head in his arms, had fallen 
asleep. The emperor glancing at the figures before him 
on the table, read the question, and then bending over 



28 WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED f 

wrote one word, ' 'Nicholas." And the story goes, that 
one name meant the cancelling of all the indebted- 
ness and the man was free. 

I do not know that this story is true, but I do know 
that if you enumerate all of your sins from the earliest 
recollection to the present moment, and beneath the sum 
of them all write this question, "Who is to pay all this?", 
there will be one name written in answer to it, 

* 'Sweetest name on mortal tongue, 
Sweetest note in seraph song, 
Sweetest carol ever sung, 
Jesus, blessed Jesus." 

CONVERSION. 

The third word starting from the letter "C" would oe 
"Conversion," and this we find in the Philippian jailer 
for we are told k 'he washed their stripes. ' ' This was 
surely a great change in the man. 

At first he exultingly fastened their feet in the stocks; 
now I can imagine him tearfully stooping down with 
cooling touch to ease their pain. There must be conver- 
sion if we are ever to be saved. 

I am not speaking of the new birth, — that is God's 
part of it, but I am emphasizing the thing man must do 
if he is ever to see the light. 

In one way it is, ' 'Right, about face !" Or it is fol- 
lowing the example of the blind men who "put them- 
selves in the way of Jesus," or it is the obedience of the 
lepers who, as they went, were cleansed. Indeed, to sum 
it all up, it is for the unsaved man to have "the willing 
mind." We are told, "if we be willing and obedient, we 
shall eat of the fruit of the land." 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED f 29 

God never saved a man until first of all he was willing 
to be saved; so whether one kneels at the altar, or bows 
in prayer in his own home, or stands in the crowded audi- 
ence, or signs the inquirer's card, the end of all these 
things must be the submission of the will to God: and 
then He does His own work, and we are born again, 
born from above. 

CONFESSION. 

The fourth and last word to be completed from the 
letter "C" is Confession,' ' and this is clearly found in the 
experience of the jailer for we are told ' 'he was baptized. ' ' 
What a mistake it is for a man to believe in his heart and 
fail to confess with his lips! Such a position is never 
satisfactory, and never brings real joy. It is not being 
obedient, to say the least. 

If your physician should write a prescription for you in 
your sickness and you should have it filled in a peculiar 
way, putting in two parts and leaving out two parts, he 
would have the right to find fault with you, and tell you 
that you would never get well until you took the whole 
prescription. And it is true with the Great Physician in 
our sin sickness. He has written the prescription that 
assures us of life — it is composed of two parts. 

First. Believe in your heart that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God. 

Second. Confess with your lips that you have appro- 
priated Him, not as a Savior but as your Savior, for if one 
desires to be fully saved, he must commit himself. It is 
not walking with the army that constitutes one a soldier; 
it is not the wearing of a garment of a soldier that makes 
him such, for this may be hired or stolen, but it is the 
definite enlistment, and this comes to one who would be 



30 WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VEDf 

a soldier of Jesus Christ when he definitely and clearly 
confesses Him. This is his enlistment. 

"What must I do to be saved? ' ' This seems to be the 
unsaved man's first query. Philosophy has never 
answered this question yet. Infidelity has tried it, and 
made it a mockery. God's answer is clear and simple. The 
Bible says: "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and 
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." "Not of 
works, lest any man should boast." It is very easy to 
receive a gift; the first step in salvation is not to give 
something but rather to receive. 

Man would naturally say, if you would be a son of God, 
try to walk as a son and you will eventually become 
such. But God makes it very clear that there can be no 
real life until there is a step taken first of all by faith; 
then he reveals himself. The things of God are spirit- 
ually discerned, and God is a revelation and not an ex- 
planation. 

To make it very clear, the best answer is the one given, 
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved." 

THE NAMES OF JESUS CHRIST. 

There is something very significant in the way the 
names of Jesus Christ are used. For example, when He 
is called Lord, it is to emphasize His kingly office, or His 
reigning power and what can the meaning be but this, 
when we are told to believe on Him as Lord? We must 
reach the place where we are willing to let Him reign in 
our life. Can you submit to this? He will never make 
a failure of it. 

Jesus is his earthly name, and the Bible says; "Thou 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VEDf 31 

shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people 
from their sins." It must be necessary then for one to 
get a conception of him as he hangs upon the cross, and 
certainly we know he was there for just one purpose, 
namely, "That he might die in our stead. M 

Major Whittle tells the story of a company of bush- 
whackers arrested in Missouri during the days of the war. 
They were sentenced to be shot, when a young boy 
couched the commanding officer on the arm and said: 
"Won't you allow me to take the place of the man stand- 
ing yonder? He has a family and will be greatly missed; 
no one will miss me; may I take his place? " When the 
officer had given his consent, the young boy stepped for- 
ward, drew the man out of line and stood in his place. 
When the command was given to fire, the boy fell dead. 
His grave is still to be found in the little Missouri town, 
and on the stone that marks it is cut these words: "Sacred 
to the memory of Willie Lear. He took my place.' ' 

This is true of Jesus Christ; He died that we might 
live, but we must accept Him. 

He is also called Christ, but this is His resurrection 
name, and as Christ He stands this moment at the right 
hand of God, makiug intercession for us. Can you 
accept Him there? 

It does seem to me that this makes the whole Christian 
life very plain. He is my Lord because He rules me; He 
is Jesus because He saved me; and He is Christ because 
whenever the mistakes of life overtake me, He stands at 
God's right hand to make explanation and intercession. 
Do you thus receive him? 

THE WORD OF GOD. 

It is also to be remembered that in the case of the 



32 WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED ? 

Philippian jailer, light came in all its clearness when 
"they spake unto him the word of the I,ord." 

I have very little confidence in that man who is not 
founded upon God's word for the assurance of his salva- 
tion. I have all the hope imaginable for that one who 
will receive it with meekness. I do not mean that he 
should be able at once to explain it, I only ask that by 
faith he receive it. 

His word is sometimes spoken of under the figure of 
the hammer, and as such it can break our stubborn wills. 
It is sometimes said to be the light, and as such it will 
penetrate the darkness. It is frequently called the water, 
it always cleanses by displacement. I am persuaded that 
if we only persuade men to receive the word of God, that 
it would bring joy unspeakable and a peace which the 
world cannot give, neither take away. 

One could not live in the promise and declaration of 
John's third chapter, sixteenth verse, without rejoicing 
in hope. 

Say it over and over to yourself this way, and thus 
make it your own verse: "God so loved 'me' that He gave 
His only begotten Son that T believing in Him should 
not perish but have everlasting life." 

I would not have you forget in this interesting story 
of the jailer that he was baptized. Baptism is insepar- 
ably connected with believing, and is as certainly a com- 
mand of God's as that we believe. 

We may differ as to the mode but too much emphasis 
cannot be placed upon the command itself. It is of 
course true that one may be saved without it, as for 
example, the thief on the cross ; as for him, it was im- 
possible, but I would be afraid to run the risk when 
Jesus said, " He that belie veth and is baptized shall be 



WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED f 33 

saved, and he that believeth not, shall be damned." 

At last when we stand before Him, we could not but 
say that we had neglected to do as He commanded. It is 
the experience of Christians everywhere, that this one of 
the sacraments brings upon the believer a marvelous 
blessing and leads him out into an experience which can 
never be described in words. 

REJOICED. 

It is not to be forgotten that when all these steps had 
been taken by the Philippian jailer, he rejoiced, believ- 
ing in God with all his house. That word is certainly 
true that " in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His 
right hand there are pleasures for evermore." 

And why should it not be so ? 

One of my friends, a Scotchman, told me that some- 
time ago he was going through his native land and 
stopped at a little cottage by the wayside to rest. When 
he entered the room, his first inclination was to be seated 
in a very comfortable chair which occupied a very prom- 
inent place in the room, but just as he made the attempt, 
an old Scotch woman sprang to the chair and lifting her 
hand exclaimed, "Nay, nay, man, don't sit there," and 
she pointed to the scarlet cord fastened around the chair 
which he had not noticed before, and said she, "One day 
Her majesty the queen, a sudden storm coming upon her, 
left her carriage and came into this house." And with a 
look of great reverence, she exclaimed, " She sat in this 
chair; and when she went away, we fastened this scarlet 
cord about it, and I said, we will give it to John, and he 
can keep it in his family;" for she said, " Is it not won- 
derful Her majesty, the queen, has used it?" 



34 WHA T MUST I DO TO BE SA VED? 

But I have a greater cause for rejoicing, Jesus Christ, 
the King of kings, has counted it a joy to take up His 
abode in my heart. He has cast around about me the 
scarlet cord, which makes me as His own. 

It is a great* thing for me to say that He is mine, but 
it is greater far for me to declare that I am His, and 
with the Philippian jailer therefore I rejoice with exceed- 
ing great joy. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

BY 

john'mcneiix. 



My text is in the 119th Psalm, the 59th and 60th 
verses. "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet 
unto Thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not 
to keep Thy commandments.' ' That is what I call the 
Old Testament story of the Prodigal Son. All that you 
have in the New Testament set forth with circumstance 
and detail is condensed into this brief epitome from the 
man who wrote the Psalms. 

"I thought on my ways." In the New Testament it is 
set forth at length; here it is implied rather than 
expressed; but there and here what you have is the his- 
tory of a man who once lived at home, but he wandered 
away into shame and folly, and when he came to him- 
self he went back again to all blessedness for this world 
and the next. This would have done splendidly as a 
headstone to set over the grave of the returned prodigal 
of Christ's story when he died; for Christ has told us 
about the young man so vividly that we have long ceased 
to look at him as a mere lay figure in a story; he has 
become real to us; and I often think this young fellow 
after he came home stayed home and did well and per- 
haps by and bye he got the whole estate into his hands. 
He outlived his father and his elder brother, and at last 
filled with honors he lay down and died, "and devout 



36 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

men carried him to his burial, and made great lamenta- 
tion over him." Now> when you think of him dead and 
buried, and if they put up headstones there as we do here, 
can you imagine anything more fitting to inscribe upon 
the tombstone of the departed prodigal than just this 
text, "Here lies one who thought on his ways, and 
turned his feet unto God's testimonies, and made haste 
and delayed not to keep His commandments ?" 

This is the record of an experience. The Lord grant 
that we may find, as we go through it, that we are 
occupying ourselves with our own experience; and if it 
has not been so with ourselves until now, may we begin 
the experience recorded here at once. 

SPIRITUAL DIARIES. 

To change the illustration, this text is an entry in the 
spiritual diary of the man who wrote the Psalms, one of 
those little auto-biographical touches that make the 
Psalms so true and give them their perennial interest. 
They so often, like all true poetry, come down to our 
level, and we say: "Dear me ! I might have said that 
myself.' ' I,ike Columbus and the egg, it is quite easy if 
you know how. 

"I thought on my own ways, and turned my feet unto 
Thy testimonies; I made haste, and delayed not to keep 
Thy commandments." I might have said that myself. 
I hope I can say it myself now that David and the Holy 
Ghost behind him have started me. Do you keep a 
diary ? Whether you do or not, God does. Has God 
had good occasion to write in that impartial record of thy 
life that He is keeping such an entry as this, ' 'On such 
and such day," — possibly only God knows, for as a man 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 37 

may be born and not able to tell either the place or the 
hour, but the fact of his existence is conclusive that it 
happened somehow, sometime, so a man may be born 
again and not know the time, nor the place; but does 
God know ? That is the point. Has the fact happened 
of your spiritual birth, your conversion, your return to 
God ? Has He had good occasion to enter in the record 
that He keeps, some such entry as this, that such and 
such a day you, John Brown, thought on your ways, 
turned your feet, made haste and no delay to return to 
God in Christ for pardon and life eternal ? It is time the 
record was in, for in the case of the best of us, naturally 
speaking, there are dark and shameful entries enough to 
make that record bitter reading in the day when the 
judgment shall be set and the books opened, and the dead 
judged out of the things that are written in the book. Ah, 
that red letter entry will redeem the record, and it is time 
it was there. 

I AM NOT A PRODIGAL. 

But I can imagine somebody saying, "Ah, this does 
not reach me ; the preacher is evidently going to give a 
discourse based upon the prodigal son," and you say that 
you are not a prodigal. My friend, you have wandered 
away. You are either on the out-going journey from 
God, into ever deepening darkness or on the ingoing 
journey back to God and holiness and heaven. And the 
wandering from God is not to do on the part of any of us, 
the wandering is done already. The great question is, 
have we started on the home-going|? We go astray from 
the womb; we could not go earlier, but we go then. We 
are born wrong. " All we like sheep have gone astray, 



38 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

we have turned every one to his own way, and the L,ord 
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Some of us go 
blundering on through the mud and mire of drunken- 
ness, swearing, licentiousness, and open sinning ; that 
is our way to the far country. Some of us go along 
the macadamized road of self-righteousness, and 
church-going, and sermon-hearing : that is our way 
the to same outerdarkness. On which path are you? 
Ponder the path of thy feet. "Thus saith the I^ord 
hosts, Consider thy ways." 

THINKING FOR ONE'S SEIyF. 

Now, when we come to this tremendously astonishing 
experience for every soul that ever was born, there are 
two or three things in it, and I want you to notice them. 
First of all, notice in this experience of the Psalmist, so 
succinctly but graphically described, here is a man first 
of all who thinks for himself. " I thought." Would 
that I had a voice like a trumpet to ring it in the ears of 
all the world that the beginning of all blessedness lies in 
this little root. As mighty oaks come out of little 
acorns, so the mighty and glorious tree of everlasting 
life grows out of this little seedlet, personal thinking. 
It is because salvation — in the large meaning of that* 
biblical expression — begins down there, that the kingdom 
of God goes on so slowly. It is because there is no 
platoon work, no mass work, no priestly work, no getting 
into heaven in batches and squadrons and regiments, no 
jugglery and witchcraft, that you are not saved. It is 
because we must begin, every soul of us, down here that 
so few find everlasting life. Religion is not magic ; it is 
a daylight business ; it is open and honest, and done in 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 39 

the daylight of a clear understanding. Bring your best 
brains with you when you come to hear God's word. 

While the stream of our sermon is flowing, the mill- 
wheel of your thinking is going; but when the stream is 
shut off, when the sermon stops, how long does the 
wheel, the mill-wheel of your personal independent 
thought about the things of God and thine own eternal 
destiny, how long does it keep working ? 

You cannot get anybody to do your thinking for you. 
It is not — "I thought on the sermon" — but — "I thought 
on my ways." No one can know the inmost thoughts of 
your heart. Your own soul is the issue at stake, and 
the thinking that will save it must be done by that soul's 
powers themselves. 

My text is not so easy if you take it right. I do not 
doubt that people think that is a kind ol cheap, almost 
flimsy utterance of Scripture. Is it ? It is widening 
and deepening. There is room in it for the head and 
shoulders, the heart, and hands and feet of an immortal 
man, and God help you to put yourself right in. It needs 
a saved man to widen out the 59th and 60th verses of 
the 119th Psalm to their true and largest proportion. 
Ah, yes; the beginning lies in personal thinking. "I 
thought." I know quite well that in the affairs of this 
world many of us make it our boast, "I think for 
myself." You are not led by the nose by anybody. 
You would not trust me to go round the corner a mes- 
sage for you,, and it is making your fortune. Y ou are 
picking up a fortune from under the feet of careless, 
happy-go-lucky, easy-going mortals, simply because you 
think for yourself, and you do things for yourself, and 
you set your own eyes on the problem, and you tackle it 



40 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

with your own teeth and your own fingers. But the tre- 
mendous charge I have against some wise men and 
women is, that in the things of their eternity the devil 
himself might pity them, they are so absolutely destitute 
of serious personal thinking. Yes, I repeat it: the devil 
might pity them, so near, so near, so little and they 
would be right; and then such worlds away, for they 
never began to think for themselves about their own soul. 
You must do your own thinking, and turn your own 
soul, and go back to God on your own feet. We go 
astray one by one, and we go back each man apart, each 
woman apart. 

THINKING ABOUT ONE'S SKI<F. 

Now, the next thing about this wonderful experience 
is, he not only thought for himself, but, secondly, he 
thought about himself. "For," he said, "I thought on 
my ways." A man who thought for himself about him- 
self. When one begins to set himself to do that, there is 
no more interesting subject for meditation to me than me. 
I am interested in you, I am interested in my friend; but 
I am selfish enough to admit that John is a great subject 
of interest to McNeill, and we have often had little chats 
together, and I wish we had more time to have more, 
and my danger is that I am neglecting my own ways for 
looking after yours. "I thought on my ways." 

Now, there is somebody here to-night who is losing 
the benefit of this address, because even while I am talk- 
ing the devil is beating you by this trick. While I am 
talking to you, you are looking across this building, 
either actually or mentally, at somebody who is here, and 
the momemt you meet outside you will say, "I am glad 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 41 

you were here, that was for you." You will say to 
them, "I hope you listened to him; didn't you see me 
looking at you ? You do not get talked to like that every 
day." So you see the devil wins again, it is his trump 
card; many a time you are hoping that other person is 
here and hoping they are thinking on their ways. Now, 
be a little selfish, it is your own ways first. There is not 
a soul among us whose, ways do not need mending and 
ending, not one of us who could not be somewhat 
improved. Four-square fronting to Thee, oh God ! and 
four-square with our back to death and hell. Or, if you 
are not looking at somebody, you are losing the benefit 
of this because your mind is turning wistfully back to 
your own house or the house of a friend who is not here, 
and you will rush away off to them and you will say 
when you see them, "Oh, I am so sorry you were not 
there; it just would have fitted you to a T." That is it 
again. Now, before you rush to your friend, I wish you 
would put 3'our own ways right. Do you think, my 
decent friend, you are right yourself ? Are you? May 
be your friend is bad and he knows that himself very likely; 
he wants to know how to be put right, and he wants you 
to tell him; you have never told him yet. That is the 
dry rot of practical religion. 

"I thought on my ways." Oh, speak to your own 
heart. You do not need a hundred of the best books to 
do this kind of thinking, you do not need a library, or 
benefit of clergy at all, but sit down with thine own con- 
science, thine own record; sit down and put thine own 
soul in a corner; talk to thy heart, say to thyself, "My 
soul, I must speak with thee, listen.' ' Say to yourself, 
, "John, answer me, — where dost thou think a man 



42 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

possessed of thy light shall land himself in the end? 
Soul, thou has been tricking me; soul, thou hast been 
dodging, thou hast been playing fast and loose with 
eternal verities, but I will have thee now. ' ' That is how to 
talk to yourself. God help you man, preach to thyself a 
sermon that no mortal minister ever can preach. I^et 
memory bring out of past years what memory contains of 
thine own life; talk to thyself until thy face grows white 
with fear upon thy bed. Do not lose your soul because 
I or some other poor minister cannot work miracles and 
preach a soul-awakening sermon and say the tremend- 
ously personal rousing things that only God and your 
own heart know. Talk to yourself and you will be con- 
verted before night, unless you are a fool. 

THREE CHANNELS OF PERSONAL THINKING. 

When a man begins to think about his ways, there are 
three channels into which he may turn the current of his 
personal independent thinking. First, who am 1 ? The 
Bible and my own conscience give the only and the sure 
answer to the question, what is man ? Philosophy and 
science cannot tell. Between the covers of the Bible I 
can learn that I am an immortal soul, a living, thinking, 
spiritual being, surrounded by the material for awhile, 
but rising above it. God breathed into our nostrils the 
breath of life, and man became a living being. Born 
never, never to go out of existence. 

Secondly, where am If On the most uncertain foot- 
ing you can imagine. Here today, and gone tomorrow. 
" Man dieth and passeth away, man giveth up his spirit, 
and where is he ?" A little while ago a wave out of the 
past eternity cast us up like driftwood on the shores of 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 43 

time, and a little while hence a wave from the eternity 
that is coming will carry us into the future. We cannot 
be certain of twenty-four hours ahead. Such is the life 
of man. God grant that we may shape ourselves for 
the great eternity. Said an ancient, " Turn to God the 
day before you die." " But, said his disciples,' ' "we do 
not know the day of our death. " " Therefore, ' ' he 
replied, " turn to God today.' ' 

Thirdly, where am I going? The Bible tells us we 
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. 
Think of it ! Kvery individual soul must appear in the 
blinding blaze of light that streams from the judgment 
seat of Christ. That is where weare going first, then the 
eternal doom I Heaven or hell. We shall see Him, and 
He shall say, "Come, ye blessed," or " Depart ye 
cursed." God grant that we may not fear to meet Jesus. 

A PRACTICAL THINKER. 

Further, I want you to notice another point. This is 
a man who not only thought upon himself and about 
himself, but, in the third place, he was a practical thinker. 
He said, " I thought on my ways, and turned my feet." 
We look at God's words as if they were nothing, and 
take and roll them under our tongue until they get 
smooth and thin. 

" The coin grows smooth in traffic current passed, 
Till Caesar's image is effaced at last." 

He was a practical thinker, for he said, "I turned my 
feet." This sermon will go the way of so many you 
have heard unless some — and I will neither call you a 
saint, nor a sinner, nor a backslider, I will just call you 
brother man and sister woman — will say, "Soul, will 



44 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

you turn now? "I thought on my ways, and turned 
my feety The young prodigal might have sat and be- 
moaned himself with the grunting swine until he had 
died. He not only bemoaned himself and called him- 
self a fool and formed good resolutions, but he arose on 
the same two feet that led him away, trudged back again 
to his father, and became a humbler youth ; and that is 
the point. 

What is the great difficulty in conversion? I will 
tell you in a word. It is simply because it is going back. 
It is a humbling thing to admit that you need turning, 
and that the evangelical preachers were right and you 
were a conceited fool. Now, that is humbling. Why is 
it that with some of you dear, decent people who are 
turned, shall I say forty years of age ? and have a good 
character, and credit, and reputation, especially of a 
church-going and chapel-going kind, — why is it that the 
likelihood of your genuine conversion to God (you are 
not converted yet, and you know it) becomes less and 
less every year ? I will tell you why ; it is because it 
would be so humbling. Why, you have dared to speak 
about experimental vital religion ; you have dared to say 
something like this: "Ah, I don't believe in these peo- 
ple who go about saying that they are saved.' ' Now I 
know people can do that foolishly, but it is not all folly, 
and the thing's right at bottom, and don't you see if you 
get converted it will come out, it cannot be hidden ; it 
will tell in a thousand ways before next Sunday. You 
will tell it yourself, and then we will all understand; and 
that is what the devil is whispering in some man's ear 
while I am at the other ; and you are just inclined to go 
my way, but the devil whispers, "Now, it will go abroad, 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 45 

and we will all understand that when you dared to 
criticise converted people, you are as much worth listen- 
ing to as a blind man who would talk about painting, or 
a deaf man who would talk about music. " You're gab- 
bling about things high as heaven above you, and deep as 
hell beneath your shallow soul. But bitter and all 
though the experience may be, God help you to go 
through it. It is a bitter pill to be converted ; but just 
like the young fellow going home, mind you, he had a 
big wrestle with himself beside the grunting swine ; 
and many a poor prodigal does not come back, and it 
is pride that keeps him in the gutter. " I will not give 
in, I will not go home to my father ; I may get naked, 
and battered, and ragged, but go back, never !" And 
he dies in the swine tub. See that ye be not like him. 
If ye get bitter pills from your doctor, he will very likely 
give you the advice with them, " Never chew your pills, 
don't take time to think about them." "I thought on 
my ways and turned." 

I wish I could make it plainer, but that you see I can- 
not. The feet, those outgoing energies, those powers, or 
symbols of the powers, by which I carry myself beyond 
myself to actions and customs and places ; those powers 
that the world and the devil and the flesh use, are pre- 
cisely the powers by which I go back to God. On the 
same feet the poor prodigal went back, bare, bleeding, torn, 
tanned, limping, but he went back ; and I see him that 
night after the feast when he sat down before he went to 
bed and looked at himself and saw what a wreck he was, 
but he said, "Bless God, I am home; bless God, I am back, 
saved, Hallelujah ! Home ! Home ! All that black 
and scorching path is behind me, and heaven and peace 



46 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL: 

and a welcome all round me." My friend, turn your 
feet ; that is the thing. God speed you to do it. As old 
Richard Baxter said, " It is turn or burn." 

A TURNING POINT. 

There are two things, there is a turning point, and 
there is a turning time. What is the turning point in 
your outward bound life ? I will tell you. Every sum- 
mer in London we took our Sunday School children out 
to the country, and when we had the little creatures 
there out on the grand field, they ran races with us and 
themselves. We drew the little ones up in line, and 
then I went away down the field, and I cried back to the 
intending runners and said, ' ' Now, I am the turning 
post ; you run out to me and you turn round me and 
back in again as fast as you can to the goal. ,, Now, I 
didn't see any little runners that afternoon going about 
like geese, saying " Where is the turning point? where are 
we to turn ?" They could not mistake me. What is the 
turning point in every hell-bound life ? It is a man, and 
such a man is Jesus Christ, standing between us and the 
hell we want to avoid and deserve to be in, saying to us 
" Don't go down there : it is an awful road ; turn ye, 
turn ye, for why will ye die?" "As I live," — and that 
is an oath, and an oath from God — " As I live," saith 
God, "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, 
I would rather that he turned unto me and lived." 
" Live ?" you say, " If I turn to God, He will kill me; 
f I turn to God and become religious, it is death." No, 
it is not. "Turn unto me and //z^," — uvk. That is the 
turning point — Jesus Christ — there before your mind, as 
visible to your understanding as I am to your face, and 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL, 47 

far more powerful. Don't you almost feel the pat of His 
hand against your breast as He tries to arrest you and 
say, "Turn, stop at Me, and go back with Me to My 
Father and your Father, My heaven and your home?" 
Decide for Christ, stop at Christ. 

" In evil long I took delight 

Unawed by guilt or fear, 
Till a new object met my sight 

And stopped my wild career; 
I saw One hanging on the cross 

In agonies and blood, 
Who fixed His dying eye on me 

As near that cross I stood.' ' 

Ah, that is the sight to arrest you! Until you have 
seen Christ on the cross, you will go to the devil merrily, 
you will take your own way to him, but that is the trend 
of it. You may say, "It is not," but that is where it 
ends; but when your eyes open to see Him, past Him you 
cannot go. May it be done now. Stop and turn at the 
living Christ, who once died, and now lives to convert 
you and save you. 

A TURNING TIME. 

He said, <r l made haste and delayed not." There is a 
turning point, and it is Christ; and there is a turning 
time, and it is now, — quicker than now if I could express 
it. "I made haste and delayed not." He said it twice; 
he is so anxious to bring out the necessity of speedy 
decision, firmness, a stand taken — "I made haste and 
delayed not." Sharpness and promptitude. Young 
fellow, look here! Suppose this was an address upon 
success in life, what divisions would I have taken but 
just the divisions that I have taken here? If you want 



48 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 

to be a success in life, think for yourself, about your own 
business. Be practical and prompt. When you have 
surveyed the field, make the risk. In all legitimate 
dealing there is a point where the risk has to be run. So 
with eternity, be prompt, — now. "I made haste and 
delayed not.' ' 

INSTANTANEOUS CONVERSION. 

Somebody may object and say, * 'But, preacher, that 
is too sudden; that is instantaneous conversion, and you 
know, preacher, I have often spoken against instan- 
taneous conversion." But I know you have often 
spoken about things you know nothing about; that is 
your trouble. Instantaneous conversion! My friend, 
your objection is futile. When you fell into the lake 
last summer, I think you wanted instantaneous salvation 
from drowning, didn't you? — and I rather think you 
were in earnest about it. Another of your utterances is, 
you object to earnestness in religion; but that day, you 
cried out earnestly to be saved from drowning. It wasn't 
a very artistic performance, but there was a fine whole- 
souled earnestness about it; and if you had the same con- 
cern about your soul you would be heard in heaven, and 
God's right arm would save you. Instantaneous con- 
version 1 It is what we want from earthly dangers. You 
do not want a committee to go and stand by the edge of 
the lake and discuss the situation, and appoint a sub- 
committee with a chairman to make an interim report; 
you do not want anybody to go and say, "You fool you, 
how did you get in there ? ' ' You want somebody to go 
and pull you out first, and afterwards discuss the folly or 
Otherwise of getting in. And that is what- 1 am doing 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL. 49 

now. Suppose I said, "Yes, you are right,*you are such 
a cantankerous, twisted old sinner, you are so utterly 
crooked that God cannot put you straight in less than 
four-and-twenty hours of stretching on the tenter-hooks 
of remorse and agony for your sin." Oh, how quickly 
you would reply to me and say, "Preacher, that is no 
salvation at all. Before four-and-twenty hours I may be 
dead and doomed. Can't I be saved now?" And it is 
infinitely mean, to give it no other name, to object to the 
only cure. 

One spring, I was in Plymouth in the south of Eng- 
land. Standing there where you can look away out to 
Eddystone Lighthouse, I saw a thousand men gathered 
on the parade ground. By one voice of command, these 
thousand men, every man of whom wore his head above 
his shoulder, every man had his own arms and limbs 
and intellectual and moral powers and faculties, a 
thousand men were going in one direction, when at the 
voice of one man a thousand men stopped. You say, 
"Many men, many minds." Ah, but not in the army. 
You will be shot in the army for your independent criti- 
cism. "Many men, one mind," if you are wise. A 
thousand men stopped. At another voice of command, a 
thousand men turned right round in an opposite direc- 
tion, and at another pealing cry, quicker than I am taking 
time to tell it, a thousand individuals, intelligent men, 
walking in a direction completely opposite to that they 
had taken sixty seconds before. Shall man over man 
have such power, and shall not God have power to arrest, 
to turn from darkness into light, the creatures who lie in 
His hand like clay on the potter's wheel? We are only 
clay, but God pity us, we are rebellious clay. Oh, while 



50 THE OLD TESTAMENT PRODIGAL: 

God is appealing, yield to the appeal of omnipotence. 
L,et God arrest thee, and thou art arrested and turned. 

decide now. 

Don't you hear the footsteps of Death come hurrying 
up behind you? "In such an hour as ye think not," 
Death will spring upon you, and how will it be with you 
then? What if you get the experience of Paton, the 
missionary to the Hebrides? Suppose you had been his 
wife, and there engrossed in your work and in your hus- 
band's work, full of life, full of hope, and suddenly from 
behind a savage buried a tomahawk in your back and with 
another stroke nearly severed your head from the body ? 
Death, come it soon or late, tomahawks us suddenly like 
that. Make haste: let there be no delay in turning to 
God. Decide for Christ now! "Now is the accepted 
time, now is the day of salvation.' ' Turn, turn, why 
will you die? 



THE GREAT ARBITRATION CASE. 

Ay 
C. H SPURGKON. 



" Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his 
hand upon us both." — Job ix: 33. 

What Job desired to have, the Lord has provided for 
us in the person of His own dear Son, Jesus Christ. We 
cannot say with Job that there is no daysman who can 
lay His hand upon both, because there is now "one 
mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' ' 
In Him let us rejoice, if indeed we have an interest in 
Him; and if we have not yet received Him, may almighty 
grace bring us even now to accept Him as our Advo- 
cate and Friend. 

There is an old quarrel between the thrice Holy God 
and His sinful subjects, the sons of Adam. Man has 
sinned; he has broken God's law in every part of it, and 
has wantonly cast off from him the allegiance which is 
due to his Maker and his King. There is a suit against 
man, which was formally instituted at Sinai and must be 
pleaded in Court before the Judge of quick and dead. 
God is the great plaintiff against his sinful creatures, 
who are the defendants. If that suit be carried into 
Court, it must go against the sinner. There is no hope 
whatever that at the last tremendous day any sinner will 
be able to stand in judgment if he shall leave the matter 
of his debts and obligations towards his God unsettled 



52 THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 

until that dreadful hour. Sinner, it would be well for 
thee to ' 'agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou 
art in the way, ' ' for if thou be once delivered up to the 
great Judge of all the earth, there is not the slightest 
hope that thy suit can be decided otherwise than to thine 
eternal ruin. "Weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of 
teeth," will be the doom adjudged thee forever if thy 
case as before the living God shall ever come to be tried 
at the fiery throne of absolute justice. But the infinite 
grace of God proposes an arbitration, and I trust you 
are not anxious to have your suit carried into court, but 
are willing that the appointed Daysman should stand 
betwixt you and God and lay his hand upon both and 
propose and carry out a plan of reconciliation. There is 
hope for thee, thou bankrupt sinner, that thou mayest 
yet be at peace with God. There is a way by which thy 
debts may yet be paid; that way is a blessed arbitration 
in which Jesus Christ shall stand as the daysman. 

Let me begin by describing the essentials of an arbitrator \ 
or daysman; then let me take you into the arbitrator's 
court and show you His proceeding) and then for a little 
time, let us dwell upon the happy success of our great 
Daysman. 

THE ESSENTIALS OF AN ARBITRATOR OR DAYSMAN. 

The first essential is, that both parties should be agreed 
to accept him. L,et me come to thee, thou sinner, against 
whom God has laid His suit, and put the matter to thee. 
God has accepted Christ Jesus to be His umpire in His 
dispute. He appointed Him to the office, and chose Him 
for it before He laid the foundations of the world. He is 
God's fellow, equal with the Most High, and can put His 



THE GREA T ARBITRA TIOA CASE. 53 

hand upon the Eternal Father without fear, because He 
is dearly beloved of that Father's heart. He is "very 
God of very God," and is in no respect inferior to "God 
over all, blessed for ever." But He is also a man like 
thyself, sinner. He once suffered, hungered, thirsted, 
and knew the meaning of poverty and pain. Nay, He 
went farther, He was tempted as thou hast been, and 
farther still, He suffered the pangs of death, as thou poor 
mortal man wilt one day have to do. Now, what think- 
est thou? God has accepted Him; canst thou agree with 
God in this matter, and agree to take Christ to be thy 
daysman too? Does foolish enmity possess thee, or does 
grace reign and lead thee to accept Emmanuel, God with 
us, as umpire in this great dispute? L,et me say to thee 
that thou wilt never find another so near akin to thee, so 
tender, so sympathetic, with such bowels of compassion 
towards thee. I,ove streamed from His eyes in life, and 
poured from His wounds in death. He is ' the express 
image" of Jehovah's person, and you know that Jeho- 
vah's name is "L,ove." "God is love," and Christ is 
love. Sinner, has divine grace brought thee to thy 
senses? Wilt thou accept Christ now? Art thou willing 
that He should take this case into His hands and arbitrate 
between thee and God? For if God accepteth Him, and 
thou accept Him too, then He has one of the first qualifi- 
cations for being a Daysman. 

But, in the next place, both parties must be fully agreed 
to leave the case entirely in the arbitrator ' s hands. If the 
arbitrator does not possess the power of settling the case, 
then pleading before him is only making an opportunity 
for wrangling, without any chance of coming to a peace- 
ful settlement. Now God has committed "all power" into 



54 THE GREA T ARBIJRA HON CASE. 

the hands of his Son. Jesus Christ is the plenipotentiary 
of God, and has been invested with full ambassadorial 
powers. He comes commissioned by his Father, and He 
can say in all that He does towards sinners, that His 
Father's heart is with Him. If the case be settled by 
him, the Father is agreed. 

Now, sinner, does grace move thy heart to do the same? 
Wilt thou agree to put thy case into the hands of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man ? Wilt thou 
abide by His decision ? Wilt thou have it settled accord- 
ing to His judgment, and shall the verdict which He gives 
stand absolute and fast with thee ? If so, then Christ has 
another essential of an arbitrator; but if not, remember, 
though He may make peace for others, He will never make 
peace for thee; for this know, that until the grace of God 
has made thee willing to trust the case in Jesus' hands, 
there can be no peace for thee, and thou art wilfully re- 
maining God's enemy by refusing to accept His dear Son. 

Further, let us say, that to make a good arbitrator, or 
umpire, it is essential that he be a fit person. If the case 
were between a king and a beggar, it would not seem 
exactly right that another king should be the arbitrator, 
or another beggar; but if there could be found a person 
who combined the two, who was both prince and beggar, 
then such a man could be selected by both. Our Iyord 
Jesus Christ precisely meets the case. There is a very 
great disparity between the plaintiff and the defendant, 
for how great is the gulf which exists between the eternal 
God and the poor fallen man ! How is this to be bridged? 
Why, by none except by one who is God and who at the 
same time can become man. Now the only being who 
can do this is Jesus Christ. He can put His hand on thee, 
stooping down to all thine infirmity and thy sorrow, and 



THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 55 

He can put his other hand upon the Eternal Majesty, and 
claim to be co-equal with God and co-eternal with the 
Father. Dost thou not see, then, His fitness? Surely it 
were the path of wisdom, sinner, to accept Him at once 
as the arbitrator in the case. See how well He understands 
it ! I should not do to be an arbitrator in legal cases, be- 
cause, though I should be anxious to do justice, yet I 
should know nothing of the law of the case. But Christ 
knows your case, and the law concerning it, because he 
has lived among men, and has passed through and suffered 
the penalties of justice. There cannot surely be a better 
skilled or more judicious daysman than our blessed Re- 
deemer. 

Yet there is one more essential of an umpire, and that 
is, that he should be a person desirous to bring the case to a 
happy settlement. If you appoint a quarrelsome arbitrator) 
he may delight to "set dogs by the ears''; but if you elect 
one who is anxious for the good of both and wishes to 
make both friends, then he is just the very man, though, 
to be sure, he would be a man of a ^thousand, very pre- 
cious when found, but very hard to discover. Oh, that all 
law-suits could be decided by such men ! In the great 
case which is pending between God and the sinner, the 
Lord Jesus Christ has a sincere anxiety both for his 
Father's glory and for the sinner's welfare, and that there 
should be peace between the t\#o contending parties. It 
is the life and aim of Jesus Christ to make peace. He 
delighteth not in the death of sinners, and He knows no joy 
greater than that of receiving prodigals to His bosom, and 
of bringing lost sheep back again to the fold. You cannot 
tell how high the Savior's bosom swells with an intense 
desire to make to Himself a great name as a peace-maker. 



56 THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 

Never had warrior such ambition to make war and to win 
victories therein, as Christ has to end war, and to win there- 
by the bloodless triumphs of peace. From the heights of heav- 
en He came leaping like a young roe down to the plains of 
earth. From earth He leaped into the depths of the grave; 
then up again at a bound He sprang to earth, and up 
again to heaven; and still He rested not, but presseth on 
in His mighty work to ingather sinners, and to reconcile 
them unto God; making Himself a propitiation for their 
sins. 

Thou seest then, sinner, how the case is. God has evi- 
dently chosen the most fitting arbitrator. That arbitrator 
is willing to undertake the case, and thou may est well 
repose all confidence in Him. But if thou shalt live and 
die without accepting Him as thine arbitrator, then, the 
case going against thee, thou wilt have none to blame 
but thyself. When the everlasting damages shall be 
assessed against thee in thy soul and body forever, thou 
shalt have to curse only thine own folly for having been 
the cause of thy ruin. May I ask you to speak candidly? 
Has the Holy Ghost so turned the natural bent and cur- 
rent of your will, that you have chosen Him because He 
has first chosen you? Do you feel that Christ this day is 
standing before God for you ? He is God's anointed; is 
He your elected ? God's choice pitches Him upon you, 
does your choice agree therewith? Remember, where 
there is no will towards Christ, Christ as yet exercises 
no saving power. Christ saves no sinner who lives and 
dies unwilling. He makes unwilling sinners willing before 
He speaks a word of comfort to them. It is the mark of our 
election as His people, that we are made willing in the 
day of God's power. Lay your hope where God has laid 



THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 57 

your help, namely, on Christ, mighty to save. You cannot 
have an arbitrator except both sides be agreed. Dost thou 
say — "Ay, ay, with all my soul I choose Him"? Then 
let us proceed. 

Now I shall want to take you into the Court where the trial 
is going on, and show you the legal proceedings before the 
great daysman. 

"The man, Christ Jesus," who is God over all, blessed 
forever," opens His Court by laying down the principles 
upon which -He intends to deliver judgment, and those 
principles I will now try to explain and expound. They 
are two-foid — first, strict justice ;and secondly, fervent love. 

STRICT JUSTICE. 

The Arbitrator has determined that let the case go as 
it may there shall be full justice done, justice to the very 
extreme, whether it be for or against the defendant. He 
intends to take the law in its sternest and severest aspect, 
and to judge according to its strictest letter. He will not 
be guilty of partiality on either side. If the law says that 
the sinner shall die, the Arbitrator declares that He will 
judge that the sinner shall die; and if, on the other hand 
the defendant can plead and prove that he is innocent, He 
intends to adjudge tohim'the award of innocence, namely 
eternal life. It the sinner can prove that he has fairly 
won it, he shall have his due. Either way, whether it 
be in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant, the condition 
of judgment is to be strict justice. 

LOVE. 

But the arbitrator also says that he will judge accord- 
ing to the second rule, that of fervent love. He loves His 



58 • THE GREAT ARBITRATION CASE. 

Father, and therefore He will decide on nothing that may 
attaint His honor or disgrace His Crown. He so loves 
God, the Eternal One, that He will suffer heaven and 
earth to pass away sooner than there shall be one blot 
upon the character of the most High. On the other hand 
He so loves the poor defendant, man, that He will be 
willing to do anything rather than inflict penalty upon 
him unless justice shall absolutely require it. He loves 
man with so large a love that nothing will delight Him 
more than to decide in his favor, and He will be but too 
glad if He can be the means of happily establishing peace 
between the two. How these principles are to meet will 
be seen by and by. At present He lays them down very 
positively. "He that ruleth among men must be just. " 
An arbitrator must be just; or else he is rfot fit to hold 
the scales in any suit. On the other hand, He must be 
tender; for His name (as God) is love, and His nature 
(as man) is gentleness and mercy. Both parties should 
distinctly consent to these principles. How can they do 
otherwise? Do they not commend themselves to all of 
you? Let justice and love unite if they can. 

'The: plaintiff's case). 

Having thus laid down the principles of judgment, the 
Arbitrator next calls upon the Plaintiff to state His case. 
Let us listen while the Great Creator speaks. May God 
give me grace now reverently to state it in His name, as 
one poor sinner stating God's case against us all. "Hear, 
O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath 
spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and 
they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his 
owner and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not 



THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 59 

know. My people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a 
people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, chil- 
dren that are corrupters; they have forsaken the L,ord, 
they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, 
they are gone away backward. ' ' The Eternal God charges 
us, and (let me confess at once) most justly and most truly 
charges us, with having broken all His Commandments 
— some of them in act, some of them in word, all of them 
in heart and thought and imagination. He charges upon 
us that against light and knowledge we have chosen the 
evil, and forsaken the good; that knowing what we were 
doing we have turned aside from His most righteous law 
and have gone astray like lost sheep, following the ima- 
ginations and devices of our own hearts. The great 
Plaintiff claims that inasmuch as we are His creatures w e 
ought to have obeyed Him, that inasmuch as we owe our 
very lives to His daily care we ought to have rendered 
Him service instead of disobedience, and to have been 
His loyal subjects, instead of turning traitors to His throne. 
All this, calmly and dispassionately, according to the 
great Book of the L,ord, is laid to our charge before the 
Daysman. No exaggeration of sin is brought against us. 
If is simply declared of us that "the whole head is sick, 
and the whole heart is faint ;" that there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one; that we have all gone out of the 
way, and altogether become unprofitable. This is God's 
case. He says, "I made this man; curiously was he 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth; and all his 
members bear traces of My singular handiwork. I made 
him for My honor, and he has not honored Me. I created 
him for My service, and he has not served Me. Twenty, 
thirty, forty, fifty years I have kept the breath in his 



60 THE ORE A T ARBITRA TION CASE. 

nostrils; the bread he has eaten has been the daily por- 
tion of My bounty; his garments are the livery of My 
charity; and all this while he has neither thought of Me, 
his Creator and Preserver, nor done anything in My 
service. He has served his family, his wife and children, 
but his Maker he has despised. He has served his 
country, his neighbors, the city in which he dwells; but 
I who made him, I have had nothing from him. He 
has been an unprofitable servant unto me." 

I think I may put the Plaintiff's case into your hands. 
Which of you would keep a horse, and that horse should 
yield you no obedience? What excuse is it that though 
I might not use him he would carry another? Nay, the case 
is worse than this. Not only has man done nothing, but 
worse than nothing. Which of you would keep a dog 
which, instead of fawning upon you, would bark at you, 
fly at you, and tear you in his rage? Some of us have 
done this to God; we have perhaps cursed Him to His 
face; we have broken His sabbaths, laughed at His gospel, 
and persecuted His saints. You would have said of such 
a dog, let it die. Wherefore should I harbor in my house 
a dog that treats me thus? Yet, hear, O heavens; and 
give ear, O earth; God has borne with your ill manners, 
and He still cries "forbear." He puts the lifted thunder 
back into the arsenal of His dread artillery. I wish I 
could state the case as I ought. My lips are but clay; 
and these words should be like fire in the sinner's soul. 
When I meditated upon this subject alone, I felt much 
sympathy with God, that He should have been so ill 
treated; and whereas some men speak of the flames of hell 
as too great a punishment for sin, it seems ten thousand 
marvels that we should not have been thrust down there 
long ago. 



THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 61 

THE DEFENDANT'S CASE. 

The Plaintiff's case having thus been stated the defendant 
is called upon by the Daysman for his, and I think I hear 
him as he begins. First of all, the trembling sinners 
pleads — " I confess to the indictment, but I say I could not 
help it. I have sinned, it is true, but my nature was such 
that I could not well do otherwise; I must lay all the blame 
of it to my own heart-, my heart was deceitful and my nature 
was evil. ' ' 

The Daysman at once rules that this is no excuse what 
ever, but an aggravation: for inasmuch as it is conceded 
that the man's heart itself is enmity against God, this in 
an admission of yet greater malice and blacker rebellion. 
It was only alleged against the offender in the first place 
that he had outwardly offended; but he acknowledges that 
he does it inwardly, and confesses that his very heart is 
traitorous against God, and is fully set upon working 
the King's damage and dishonor. It is determined, 
therefore, by the Daysman that this excuse will not stand 
and He gives a case in point: — a thief is brought up for 
stealing, and he pleads that his heart was thievish, that 
he felt a constant inclination to steal, and that therefore 
he could not help running off with any goods within his 
reach. The judge very properly answers, "Then I shall 
give you twice as much penalty as any other man who 
only fell into the fault by surprise, for according to your 
own confession, you are a thief through and through. 
What you have said is not an excuse, but an aggravation.'' 

Then the defendant pleads in the next place that albeit 
he acknowledges the facts alleged against him, yet he is 
no worse than other offenders, and that there are many in 
the world who have sinned more grievously than he has 



62 THE GREA T ARB1TRA HON CASE. 

done. He says he has been envious, and angry, and 
worldly, and covetous, and has forgotten God; but then 
he never was an adulterer, or a thief, or a drunkard, or a 
blasphemer, and he pleads that his lesser crimes may well 
be winked at. But the great Daysman at once turns to 
the Statute Book, and says that as he is about to give his 
decision by law that plea is not at all tenable, for the law 
book has it — "Cursed is every man that continueth not 
in all things that are written in the book of the law to do 
them," The offence of one sinner doth not excuse the 
offence of another; and the arbitrator declares that he can- 
not mix up other cases with the case now in hand; that 
the present offender has on his own confession broken 
the law, and that as the law book stands, that is the only 
question to be decided, for "the soul that sinneth it shall 
die," and if the defendant has no better plea to offer, 
judgment must go against him. 

The sinner urges further, that though he has offended, 
and offended very greatly and grievously, yet he has done 
a great many good things. It is true he did not love 
God, but he always went to church. It is true he did 
not pray, but still he belonged to a singing class. It is 
quite correct that he did not love his neighbor as himself, 
but he always like to relieve the poor. But the Days- 
man, looking the sinner full in the face, tells him that 
this plea also is bad, ior the alleged commission of some 
acts of loyalty will not make compensation for avowed 
acts of treason. "Those things," saith he, "ye ought to 
have done, but not to have left the others undone"; and 
he tells the sinner, with all kindness and gentleness, that 
straining at a gnat does not exonerate him for having 
swallowed a camel; and that having tithed mint, and 



THE ORE A T ARBITRA TION CASE. 63 

anise, and cummin, is no justification for having devoured 
a widow's house. To have forgotten God is in itself a 
great enormity; to have lived without serving him is a 
crime of omission so great, that whatever the sinner may 
have done on the contra, stands for nothing at all, since 
he has even then in that case done only what he ought to 
have done. 

You see at once the justice of this decision. If any of 
you were to say to your grocer, or tailor, when they send 
in their bills, "Well, now, you ought not to ask for pay- 
ment of that account, because I did pay you another bill 
— you ought not to ask me to pay for that suit of clothes, 
because I did pay you for another suit." I think the 
answer would be, ' 'But in paying for what you had before, 
you only did what you ought to do; but I still have a 
demand upon you for this." So all the good deeds you 
have ever done are only debts discharged which were 
most fully due, (supposing them to be good deeds, which 
is very questionable), and they leave the great debt still 
untouched. 

The defendant has no end of pleas, for the sinner has a 
thousand excuses; and finding that nothing else will do, 
he begins to appeal to the mercy of the plaintiff, and says 
that for the future he will do better. He confesses that he 
is in debt, but he will run up no more bills at that shop. 
He acknowledges that he has offended, but he vows he 
will not do so again. He is quite sure that the future 
shall be as free from fault as angels are from sin. 
Though it is true that he just now said his heart was 
bad, still he feels inclined to think that it is not so very 
bad after all; he is conceited enough to think that he can 
in the future keep himself from committing sin; thereby, 



64 THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 

you see, admitting the worthlessness of his former plea on 
which he relied so much. "Now," he says, "if for life I 
become a teetotaler, then surely I may be excused for 
having been a drunkard. Suppose now that I am always 
honest and steady, and never again say one ill word, will 
not that exonerate me from all my wrong- doings, and for 
having blasphemed God V\ But the Daysman rules, still 
with kindness and gentleness, that the greatest imagin- 
able virtue in the future will be no recompense for the 
sin of the past; for he finds in the law no promise what- 
ever made to that effect: but the statute runs in 
these words, "He will by no means spare the guilty;' ' 
"Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things 
which are written in the book of the law to do them." 

PLEADS GUII/TY. 

What is the poor defendant to do now ? He is fairly 
beaten this time. He falls down on his knees, and with 
many tears and lamentations cries, ' 'I see how the case 
stands; / have nothing to plead, but I appeal to the mercy of 
the plaintiff. I confess that I have broken His command- 
ments; I acknowledge that I deserve His wrath; but I 
have heard He is merciful, and I plead for free and full 
forgiveness. " 

And now comes another scene. The plaintiff seeing 
the sinner on his knees, with his eyes full of tears, makes 
this reply, "I am willing at all times to deal kindly and 
according to loving kindness with all my creatures; but 
will the arbitrator for a moment suggest that I should 
damage and ruin my own perfections of truth and holi- 
ness; that I should belie my own word; that I should 
imperil my own throne; that I should make the purity of 



THE GREA T A RBI TRA TION CASE. 65 

immaculate justice to be suspected, and should bring 
down the glory of my unsullied holiness, because this 
creature has offended me, and now craves for mercy ? I 
cannot, I will not spare the guilty; he has offended, and 
he must die ! 'As I live; I have no pleasure in the death 
of the wicked, but would rather that he should turn from 
his wickedness and live.' Still, this 'would rather' must 
not be supreme. I am gracious and would spare the sin- 
ner, but I am just, and must not unsay my own words. 
I swore with an oath, 'The soul that sinneth shall die.' 
I have laid it down as a matter of firm decree, 'Cursed is 
every one that continueth not in all things whicjj are 
written in the book of the law to do them.' This sinner 
is righteously cursed, and he must inevitably die; and yet 
I love him. And yet, how can I put thee among the 
children ? Would it not be a worse calamity that I 
should be unjust than that earth should lose its inhabit- 
ants? Better all men perish, than that the universe 
should lose the justice of God as its stay and shield." 

THE VERDICT. 

The arbitrator bows and says, "Even so; justice 
demands that the offender should die, and I would not 
have thee unjust.' ' 

What more does the arbitrator say? He sits still, and 
the case is in suspense. There stands the just and holy 
God, willing to forgive if it can be done without injury 
to the immutable principles of right. There sits the 
arbitrator, looking with eyes of love upon the poor, 
weeping, trembling sinner, and anxious to devise a plan 
to save him, but conscious that that plan must not 
infringe upon divine justice; for it were a worse cruelty 



66 THE GREAT ARBITRATION CASE. 

to injure divine perfections than it were to destroy the 
whole human race. The arbitrator, therefore, after 
pausing awhile, puts it thus: "I am anxious that these 
two should be brought together. I love them both. I can- 
not, on the one hand, recommend that my Father should 
stain his honor; I cannot, on the other hand, endure that 
this sinner should be cast eternally into hell. I will 
decide the case, and it shall be thus: / will pay my 
Father's justice all it craves. I pledge myself that in the 
fulness of time / will suffer in my own proper person all 
that the weeping •, trembling sinnet ought to have suffered. 
My Father, wilt thou stand to this? The eternal God 
accepts the awful sacrifice! What say you, sinner, what 
say you? Why, methinks you cannot have two opinions. 
If you are sane — and may God make you sane — you will 
melt with wonder. You will say, "I could not have 
thought this! I never called in a Daysman with an 
expectation of this! / have sinned, and he declares that 
he will suffer; /am guilty, and he says that he will be 
punished for mel" 

CHRIST DIED TO SAVE THE DEFENDANT. 

Yes, sinner, and he did more than say it, for when the 
fulness of time came — you know the story. The officers 
of justice served him with the writ, and he was taken 
from his knees in the garden of Gethsemane, away to the 
court, and there he was tried and condemned; and you 
know how his back was scourged till the white bones 
stood like islands of ivory in the midst of a crimson sea 
of gore; you know how his head was crowned with 
thorns, and his cheeks were given to those who plucked 
off the hair! Can you not see him hounded through the 



THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE. 67 

streets of Jerusalem, with the spittle of the brutal soldiery 
still upon his unwashed face, and his wounds all 
unstanched and bleeding? Can you not see him as they 
hurl him down and fasten him to the accursed tree? — 
then they lift the cross and dash it down into its socket 
*n the earth, dislocating every bone, tearing every nerve 
and sinew, filling his soul as full of agony as this earth 
is full of siH, or the depths of the ocean filled with its 
floods? You do not know, however, what He suffered 
within. Hell held carnival within His heart. Every 
arrow of the infernal pit was discharged at Him, and 
heaven itself forsook Him, the thunderbolts of vengeance 
fell upon Him, and His Father hid His face from Him, 
because "He who knew no sin was made sin for us that 
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, M 
and He cried in His agony, "My God, my God, why 
hast thou forsaken me ? ' ' And so He suffered on, and 
on, and on, till "It is finished' ' from His dying lips 
closed the scene. 

Here, then, is the arbitration. Christ Himself suffers, 
and now I have to put the query, "Hast thou accepted 
Christ ? ' ' O dear friend, if thou hast, I know that God 
the Holy Ghost has made thee accept Him. But if 
thou hast not, what shall I call thee? I will not upbraid 
thee, but my heart would weep over thee. How canst 
thou be so mad as to forego a compromise so blessed, an 
arbitration so divine! Oh! kiss the feet of the Daysman; 
love Him all thy life, that He has decided the case so 
blessedly. 

I would to God that you would now look to the Savior; 
that you would come with weeping and tears to Him, 
and say, 



68 THE GREA T ARBITRA TION CASE: 

" ' Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly.' 

Take my case, and arbitrate for me; I accept thy atone- 
ment; I trust in thy precious blood. Only receive me 
and I will rejoice in thee for ever with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory." May the I,ord bless you evermore. 
Amen. 



AS THEY WENT. 

BY 
B. FAY' M I U<S. 



As Jesus went to Jerusalem, He passed through the 
midst of Samaria and Galilee, and as He entered into a 
certain village, there met Him ten lepers, who stood afar 
off, and lifted up their voices, and said: "Jesus, Master, 
have mercy on us." When He saw them He said unto 
them/ "Go show yourselves unto the priests/ ' The 
priests were the health officers, and these lepers had no 
right to go to the priests until they knew they were well, 
and they knew they were not well. But "it came to 
pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.' ' 

Jesus taught His disciples in three ways; sometimes 
by direct instruction, sometimes by the relating of a 
parable, and sometimes by making use of an illustration, 
frequently taken from some present object or event. In 
connection with the practical teaching of the healing of 
the lepers. He made use of all three of these methods. 
The disciples had said to Jesus, "Increase our faith/ ' 
and in response He had said to them, "If ye had faith 
as a grain of mustard seed, ye might have said to this 
sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and 
be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you." 
And then He told them the parable about the man 
having a servant, plowing or feeding cattle, and said: 
" Which one of you would say to him by and by, when 



70 AS THEY WENT. 

he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? 
but would not rather say unto him, Make ready where- 
with I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I 
have eaten and drunken ; and afterward thou shalt eat 
and drink ? Doth he thank that servant because he did 
the things that were commanded him ? I trow not. So 
likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things 
which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable ser- 
vants : we have done that which was our duty to do." 
This was the answer that He gave to them when they 
said: ' ' Increase our faith. " It meant practically, "Do 
the next thing that you ought to do, in a humble spirit;' * 
and then there came this practical and better illustration 
of the doctrine, in the cleansing of the ten lepers. 

I want to make the method of God so plain and simple 
that no one shall be able to rise up at the judgment day 
and say that he was in this meeting and did not learn 
how he might inherit eternal life. Nay, I do not h ave 
to make it simple. I want to make it as God has made 
it. I want to tell it as God has told it. I want to strip 
it of all that men have put around it that has disguised 
its form — the marvelous simplicity of the way by which 
men may lay hold of eternal life. 

THREE THINGS DUB TO GOD. 

I believe that God has a right to expect of heathen and of 
Christian alike three things. No matter whether a man 
is born in a gutter or in a palace, in the depths of Africa 
or in the most Christian city on earth, God has a right 
to expect of him, first, an honest effort to forsake sin ; 
second, a sincere desire to know the truth in order to do 
it; third, an open confession of his adhesion unto right- 



AS THEY WENT. 71 

eousness. These three things God has a right to expect 
from every person that ever had a mind and a conscience, 
and the doing of these three things will lead anybody 
upon earth into the eternal light and life of God. It is 
just as simple as that. As they go, they will be cleansed. 
Let me analyze this a little. 

First, an honest effort to forsake sin, that does not 
mean sin that you do not know, but it means everything 
that you do know that is sinful ; and that you will adopt 
the principle that as you get more light that shows you 
more uncleanness in the heart, you will also give that up. 

Second, the honest desire to know the truth in order 
to do it. I believe that one of the most cursed ambitions 
that ever stirred a human mind is a selfish desire for 
knowledge. To wish simply to know may be a devilish 
thing ; but to know in order to do, that is a godly thing 
— a passion for knowledge for the sake of character, to 
live up to all the light that you have, that you may get 
more light by doing what you ought to do, to take the 
step you see before you with what light you have and 
and when you see another step to take that, and then 
the next, and then the next. 

And then, the open confession of this intention — is not 
that also reasonable and necessary ? * ' No man liveth 
unto himself." We touch the lives around us. The 
solitary are set in families, and people are framed in one 
great network of society — nay, one great organism of 
society ; so that if one member suffers, all the members 
suffer with it, and if one member be healthful, it shall 
help to impart health to all the rest, your neighbor, your 
wife, your child, your business associate, the people that 
know you and look upon you, have a right to know that, 



72 AS THEY WENT. 

as for you, you mean to do right as far as it shall be 
shown unto you. 

I never saw any man who did these three things with- 
out coming to a knowledge of sin, to a knowledge of God, 
to a knowledge of God's salvation, to peace and light and 
hope and likeness unto Jesus Christ. 

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL. 

There are two ways to investigate a machine, there are 
two ways to learn about anything; the one way is theor- 
etical, and the other is practical. Some time ago I was 
in a great carpet factory, and the proprietor, Mr. B., was 
showing us through the establishment. We went into a 
room that was a sort of inventor's room, and he said: 
" Here's a machine that I have just invented for making 
a new kind of carpet. ' ' There it was, towering up per- 
haps ten feet above the floor, and as large around as 
three or four men might reach with their hands touch- 
ing, and with, I should say, a thousand needles, and a 
very great number of intricate parts. Mr. B. described 
it, and said, "This is this, and that is that, and the 
other is the other thing.' ' I tried to look wise for a 
while, but finally broke down and said, - ' You might as 
well talk Choctaw as to tell me all that. I will take your 
word that it makes carpet, but I am afraid that I have not 
a mechanical head, and I am sure that I could not under- 
stand how that machine can make carpet." He said, 
"If you will stay here twenty-four hours I will guarantee 
that you will understand it as well as I do. "I said, "You 
do not know the person that you have undertaken to 
teach. I am sure there is nothing on earth that could 
show me how that machine can make carpet, if I should 
stand here for the next twenty-four years." "Come 



AS THEY WENT. 73 

here," he said, and he took me into another room, and 
there he had one of the machines in motion, and I saw it 
make the carpet. Then I knew that it did it, just at 
well as if I could have uttered all those mysterious words, 
and understood all about every portion of that machine. 

Now there are two ways to know the salvation of 
Christ. One of them would be just as impossible for you 
to understand as it would have been for me to understand 
the explanation given me concerning that machine. To 
know all about God would take an infinite mind, that 
could reach into all space and all time, and understand 
all history and all prophecy and all mystery. In order 
to know all about God you would have to be God him- 
self. You would have to have more time and a greater 
brain and a longer development and culture than any 
man in the world. It is a thinkable thing that a man 
should do that, but it is not a practicable thing. 

But there is another way to know God. Set the 
machine in motion ; see what it will do; commence to 
obey ; act as though the word of God meant what it said 
when it says that "to those who obey Him, He is the 
iauthor of Eternal life." Commence to do His will and 
see if you will not know of the doctrine. As you go, 
you will be cleansed. 

KNOWLEDGE OF SIN, AND SORROW FOR IT. 

I believe that such an effort as this will lead to four 
things: — In the first place it will lead to a knowledge of 
sin, and to sorrow for it. If Scripture is profitable for 
reproof and correction, I believe that practice is even 
more so, and that any man will be convicted of sin who 
endeavors to do the will of God. I believe that godly sor- 



74 AS THEY WENT. 

row worketh repentance that is not to be repented of; and 
that godly sorrow comes to us in proportion as we are 
godly. I have had more pain to-day for one hasty word 
that escaped my lips unawares, than I had on account ot 
all the sins in my life while I was an unconverted man. 
I believe that the nearer we get to God, the more sensi- 
tive to sin do we become, until the least sin will pain us, 
as the least speck will pain the eye if it falls upon it. When 
Paul was about enlisting in God's service, or shortly 
afterward, he said that he was not worthy to be called an 
apostle. Then he said he was less than the least of all 
saints. And at the time that he said he was ready to be 
offered, he also said he was the chief of sinners. Now I 
do not believe that he was growing more wicked all the 
time, but I think he was realizing more and more what 
sin meant, and was becoming more sensitive to the touch 
of sin. You might be down in a dark cellar to-night, 
with all sorts of loathsome things about you, the atmos- 
phere filled with impurities, and some hideous, slimy 
reptile might come within half an inch of your hand or 
even your face, and you might not mind it because you 
did not see what was about you. But as the light came 
in and you began to realize these things, you would 
shrink away from this crawling reptile, and you would 
try to stamp out of existence that loathsome thing; and 
as the light grew brighter and brighter, at last the very 
air around you would be seen to be filled with that which 
was poisonous and repulsive. It is so with a man who 
sets himself to do the will of God, as God shows it to 
him. Sin seems exceedingly sinful, and more and more 
sinful as he goes on with his earnest effort to do the will 
of God. 

I knew of a man who was known as "the man who 



AS THEY WENT. 75 

had never wept. ' y No one had ever seen tears upon his 
face, one night he was deeply convicted of sin in a meet- 
ing, and finally, with great trembling, he took hold ot 
the seat in front of him and pulled himself up to a par- 
tially erect posture, and cried "Can a man be saved who 
has never wept?" And even as he said it he let go of the 
seat and fell back into the pew, and burst into tears. 
Oh, I believe that tears would come to cheeks unused to 
them if only some would be willing to do the will of God. 
I knew of a man in the army who was said to be the 
wickedest man in the regiment. One night he came into 
the regimental prayer-meeting and stood up and said very 
calmly, "Comrades, I am going to lead a godly life." 
The soldiers were surprised, because they thought that 
a wicked man would have to manifest deeper concern 
about sin in order to get rid of it. He tried it for one day, 
and came into the prayer-meeting the next night. This 
time he had concern enough: he could hardly speak. He 
said, "Comrades, I did not do right when I told you last 
night that I was going to lead a godly life. I don't 
know that God can forgive me. I have received two 
letters that tell me of the death of two persons. One of 
them was a young man who has just died of delirium 
tremens at my home in New England; and the other is a 
young woman that has died in a place of shame in Wash- 
ington. I led them both astray! O, my God! Can there 
be mercy for a wretch like me?" God did save that man, 
but he was never heard to pray until the day of his death 
that he did not say, "Oh God, help me to do good enough 
to counterbalance the evil of my past life." Oh* friends, 
you would have concern enough if only you would com- 
mence with what light you have openly to do the will of 
God. 



76 AS, THEY WENT. 



SOLUTION OF DOUBTS. 



There is another thing that would come to you, and 
that is the solving of every doubt. I believe there is no 
infidel walking in the mist and labyrinth of doubt, who 
would not see a clear road that would shine with light up 
to the portals of the City of God, if only he would be 
willing openly to do what God showed him that He 
wanted him to do. I believe there is no poor wretch 
sitting now in some loathsome place, bound hand and 
foot with the chains of some selfish or sensual or ava- 
ricious vice, but would find the chains broken, and would 
rise up a free man, if only he was willing to do the will 
of God. 

There was a man in a New England city, who was an 
infidel. He had forty-five young men, I think that was 
the number, associated with him in an infidel club, of 
which he was president. Some revival meetings were in 
progress in that city, and one day the pastor of the church 
where the meetings were being held, met this man on the 
street, and invited him to come to the meetings. He 
said, "I don't know that I ought to go. But I am one 
who professes to believe in morality, and I think these 
meetings are having a good moral influence on the com- 
munity, and so far they have my approbation. I'll tell 
you what I would like. I would like to see some of my 
young men going to these meetings. To be honest with 
you, some of the young men in our society are getting 
pretty far away from the path they ought to walk in, and 
I suppose I am somewhat responsible for them. I would 
like to have them take any sort of a moral tonic that 
would tone them up." Said the minister, "Suppose you 
invite them to come." "I am willing to ask them," was 



AS THEY WENT. 77 

the reply. On the next day the minister met him and 
said, "Did you ask the young men to come to the meet- 
ings ?" "Yes, but none of them would go." "Did you 
tell them you would come yourself?" "No, I did not. 
I told them I would not go. If I should go, people 
would say that there had been a radical change in me, 
and it would cause a great deal of discussion, and my 
action would be misunderstood. I am sure I ought not 
to go." The minister said, "I will tell you what I will 
do. If you will see your young men, and tell them 
you are going to the meeting, and then let me know how 
many are coming with you, I will reserve a block of seats 
for you, and when you come and take them I will tell the 
people that you have come to the meeting, not because 
you have ceased to be an infidel, but because you think 
that this is a good moral movement, and in that way you 
are willing to patronize it." The infidel said, "If you 
will do that, I will come." He came, and twenty-six of 
his young men were with him. They sat down in the 
block of reserved seats, and, of course, the people all 
looked at them, and the minister rose up and made the 
statement as he said he would. The meeting went on, 
and five of those young men were converted that night; 
and the person who seemed happiest over it was this infi- 
del leader. He knew nothing that would keep them from 
their sinful ways, and the weight of responsibility was 
beginning to press upon him very seriously. The next 
night the young men were there again, and some others 
with them, and several others decided for Christ. As the 
days went by, the man most interested in getting the 
young men to rise and confess Christ was this infidel. 
He did not have to worry any more about the young men 
going to saloons and gambling hells and places of evil 



78 AS THEY WENT. 

repute* He began to be very much relieved, and he 
seemed very happy when one after another took a stand 
for Christ. The last night of the meetings came; the 
people had gone out, and the pastor and one of the 
deacons were at the front of the church, when this man 
came up and said to the pastor, "I have been so busy for 
the last two weeks that I have not had time to take stock 
of my thoughts at all, and I hardly know where I stand. 
But if you will see me to-morrow morning at eleven 
o'clock I will come to your house and have a conversa- 
tion with you, to see whether there is any way by which 
I can renounce my infidelity and become a Christian. ' y 
The men both smiled, and the agnostic saw what the 
smile meant, and he said, ''You do not think that I am 
a Christian, do you?" And the minister said "If you 
will go on as you are doing now, you will be one of the 
best Christians on earth.' ' He never went to talk with 
the minister about his soul. His doubts all disappeared 
that night; every difficulty that had been in his way was 
removed. He stood up in the next meeting where he 
had an opportunity, and made a confession of Jesus Christ. 
He gathered his young men into the Sunday-school, and 
became the teacher of a large Bible class. As he went, 
he was cleansed. 

When I^ady Henry Somerset was seeking God, she 
heard a voice say, ' 'My child, if you will act as if I were, 
you will know that I am." And she was not disobedient 
unto the heavenly vision, and she came into God's light. 

I know at least a hundred other instances like these, 
and I will tell of one more. Thiswas an infidel German 
Professor, in the University of Berlin, who came to Lon- 
don on a visit, and was spending a part of his time with 



AS THEY WENT. 79 

the Rev. Dr. R., the Rector of one of the English 
Churches. Dr. R. did not speak to him on religious 
topics until he had been there a week and was preparing 
to leave. One day, after the professor had attended a 
service in the Church, and they were together in the 
vestry, the pastor spoke to him about his spiritual wel- 
fare. The professor said, "I do not believe certain things 
about the Christian religion. I do not believe in Jesus 
Christ as the Son of God. I do not believe in the inspira- 
tion of the Bible, or in miracles. I think there may be a God 
in fact, I am inclined to think there is a God; but I do 
not think there is any way by which any one can get 
acquainted with Him." The pastor said, " Professor, 
would you like to know that there is a God?" He 
replied, ''Yes, I should, but I do not think God has 
revealed Himself to men." The pastor said, "Professor, 
do you think that if God were kindly disposed toward 
His creatures, and if there were a way in which He could 
reveal Himself to men, He would do it?" The Professor 
said, "Yes, I think if he were kindly disposed, and were 
able to do it, that He would. But I do not think that 
He can." "Do you think He is kindly disposed toward 
His creatures? " "I would have to believe that, or He 
would crush us out of existence or fill us with continual 
misery." "Professor, if God should reveal Himself to 
you, would you be willing to meet the consequences and 
do what He told you to do, if He would show you His 
will?" "Yes, if God could do it, and would do it, I 
would do what He showed me. But I do not think that 
He can." "Did you ever ask Him?" "No, I have 
never felt that that would be consistent." "Professor, 
will you kneel with me here, reverently, and after I have 
prayed, will you say what you can honestly say out of 



80 AS THEY WENT. 

your heart concerning your desire that God should reveal 
Himself to you?" "Yes, I will." They knelt down, 
and the minister prayed, and the professor said, "O God, 
if you can hear w T hat I say to you now, and if You can 
reveal yourself to me, I pledge myself that I will do what 
You show T me You w r ant me to do." They stayed on their 
knees half an hour, and then suddenly, without any 
warning, the professer sprang to his feet and said, "I 
believe in Jesus Christ ! I see it all, and it is glorious, it 
is glorious ! " He went back to Germany and became as 
a center of blazing light, illuminating the region round 
about. As he went, he was cleansed. 

REMOVAL OF STUMBLING-BLOCKS. 

Then, in the third place, this would lead to the removal 
of every stumbling -block. "Great peace have they that 
love th^ law," said the Psalmist, "and they shall have 
no stumbling-block." Take two things at which men 
stumble. For instance, the excuse that hypocrites in the 
Church are keeping them out of it. I do not believe it is 
true that any hypocrite is keeping any man who honestly 
wants to know God out of the Church of Christ. But 
whether that be so or not, you can get over that difficulty; 
commence to lead a godly life and you will have all that 
you can do to take care of yourself, and you will not to 
concerned about the hypocrites in the Church, except be 
help them to become pure and righteous. There is no 
hypocrite in my way all the distance from the place where 
I stand up to the time when I shall stand before God in 
the glory of His eternal Kingdom. There is not a hypo- 
crite in the way of any one who wills to do the will of 
God, and wants to be like the Son of God, who wasmani- 



AS THEY WENT. 81 

fested upon earth. The hypocrites are all going the other 
way. 

There are some people who say honestly that they are 
afraid they will not hold out. They say, "Suppose I 
should try it, what guarantee have I that I will succeed ?" 
If you were in Mr. Moody's home, and asked him about 
a certain clock on the wall in the dining-room, he 
would probably tell you a story. This clock was given 
to him by a lady in London, who came to one of Mr. 
Moody's meetings and was very angry at some things he 
said. She came back the next night, however, and was 
angrier still; she came back the next night, and her 
anger began to vanish. The night after that she was also 
there, and became deeply convicted of sin. The next 
night she was in the enquiry meeting, and she came 
night after night until one night she said to Mr. Moody, ' I 
realize that I am a sinner; I believe that Jesus Christ is 
the Son of God; but I believe that I cannot be a Christian. 
Whether it is my sin, or what it is, I do not know. But 
I do not believe that if I commenced to be a Christian I 
could ever hold out." Mr. Moody tried every way he 
could to get her to decide to try. But he failed, until he 
thought of that old story about the pendulum. On the 
first day of January, the pendulum began to count up 
what it had to do. It had to tick so many ticks in a 
minute, and there were so many minutes in an hour, 
and so many hours in a day, and so many days in a year, 
and it would likely have to keep on ticking for so many 
years. When it found out the millions of times it would 
have to tick it said, "It's of no use; I will stop right now." 
Then this thought occurred to the pendulum, "It is 
only one tick at a time." So it began to tick, and it 
ticked the next tick, and the next, anc) the next, and it 



82 AS THEY WENT. 

is ticking yet. This lady said to Mr. Moody, "I will 
tick the first tick now," and she is ticking yet. She gave 
that clock to Mr. Moody — she is now one of the most 
earnest Christians in the city of London — and asked him 
if any should refer to it, to tell them the story, that it 
is only a tick at a time. Blessed be God, it is as simple 
as that! "As they went, they were cleansed.* ' 

ASSURANCE. 

Now there is one thing more. Such an earnest effort 
will lead to knowledge, to assurance, to confidence, to peace 
and joy. Here are two young men, John and James. 
John is a fine boy; he is very industrious and very studi- 
ous, and very happy. James is a miserable contemptible 
loafer, and he thinks, "I wonder if I cannot be as happy 
as John. I am miserable all the time; but there is John, 
he works twice as hard as I do, and he is happy all the 
time. I will see if I cannot be happy. I will imitate 
John." He notices that John gets up at six o'clock in the 
morning and chops a lot of kindling for his mother, and 
then brings in the water, and helps her in other ways, and 
spends some time in study, and then goes off to school 
and applies himself to his lessons and recites them well. 
So the next morning James gets up at six o'clock; it is 
pretty hard. He rubs his eyes, and after he gets dressed 
he goes down and splits the wood, that is harder yet. 
Then he goes off to school and tries to learn his lessons, 
but he finally goes to sleep, and the teacher wakes him 
up in a way that is not pleasant. He says, "It's no use, 
I am different from John. I cannot do this sort of a thing. 
I cannot be happy, no matter how I try." Suppose he 
tried it differently, suppose he said, -'I am a miserable 



AS THEY WENT. 83 

contemptible loafer. There is my good industrious 
brother, and I am going to be good." Suppose he under- 
takes to do right, not because he wants to be happy, but 
because he wants to be good. He will find pretty soon 
that the same flow of satisfaction that John has, will break 
out over him, and as he goes he will be filled with peace. 
It is so in the service of God. Do not try to be happy 
while you are spiritually sick. Get well. Do not try to 
see how happy you can be while the disease stays about 
you, but get rid of the disease and know the joy of a strong, 
well man or woman in Jesus Christ. As you go, you will 
be cleansed. 

A man in this country who has won a multitude of 
souls to Christ, when he first confessed Christ, was in 
utter darkness, and he stayed there for three weeks. Yet 
all that time he was endeavoring to do the will of God, 
and was openly confessing Him. The pastor invited 
those who wanted to join the Church, to meet the com- 
mittee, and when the committee met, this man appeared 
before them and said, "Gentlemen, it is as black as night; 
it is dark in me, and dark all around me. But I have 
set myself to do the will of God." They said to him, 
"Suppose it stays dark, what are you going to do?" He 
replied, "I am going to do the best I can in serving 
Christ. M They said to him, "Come into the Church. M 
And the very second that he was baptized, as he came 
from the water, the light of God broke in upon his soul. 
I believe he would have died in the darkness unless he 
had been willing to obey this command of Christ. As he 
went, he was cleansed. 

I remember one afternoon in Newark, N. J., I was 
preaching in a church which was completely filled. A3 



84 AS THEY WENT. 

the sermon commenced, a lady came in with a drunken 
man whom she had found on the street. She brought 
him down the^iisle, looking this way and that to find a 
seat, but there was no place where they could sit down 
until they came to the platform. There were some steps 
right in front of the pulpit, and they sat down there. 
During the sermon I saw that the man was w T eeping, and 
the very second I said, ' 'Is there anyone here who wants 
to be free from sin?" he rose up and said, "I do! I do!" 
After the meeting was over, my associate, Mr. Green- 
wood, took him into another room and kneeled down with 
him; and the man said, "Lord, I do give myself to Thee. 

God, if you ever saved anybody, save me." He came 
out into the other room and said tome, "Mr. Mills, I 
have done the best I can. I have given myself to God. 

1 am the weakest and most sinful man on earth, but I do 
believe God is going to save me." I said, "Hallelujah! 
I believe it too." I told the people about it in the sermon 
the next afternoon as an illustration, and I said, "I do 
not see that; man here to-day, but I believe God has saved 
him." As I said it, a man raised up his hand in the 
audience, and then I saw that it was this same man. No 
wonder that I did not know him. Christ was manifest 
in his face where he had not been the day before. I said, 
"Stand up, my brother," and he stood up, and a beauti- 
ful blush came over his face. He looked like a nobleman, 
and I said, "Do you want to say a word?" and he said, 
"Yesterday I was a wreck, and to-day I am a man. " As 
he went, he was cleansed. 

Now for the final application. First of all, to Christ- 
ians. If you are not right in your experience, you are 
wrong in your life. If the Bible is a dull dead book to 
you, if you do not know what it means to have God's 



AS THEY WENT. 85 

peace, if you have not strength in temptation, if you 
have not power to win men to Christ, you are wrong in 
your life. If you fulfilled the conditions you would be 
cleansed, and if you are not cleansed, it is because you 
have not obeyed the plain voice of God. O my brother, 
my sister, will you commence to obey God now ? Give 
Him the last thing. As you do, you will be cleansed. 

To you, my brother, who have said that the christian 
way was mysterious, let me say that it is the only simple 
thing in the world. You have said you could not under- 
stand it. You can understand it better than you can 
understand how you breathe. It is the only thing that 
you can understand. If you will do the will of God, 
Jesus says you will know of the doctrine, and he will 
bring you into everlasting life. In the name of God, 
whom you and I shall meet at the day of separation, I 
throw down this challenge and ask you to test it. Will 
you say here, clearly and openly, that you are willing to 
do the will of God ? As you go, you will be cleansed. 

Some one asked Coleridge if he could prove the truth of 
Christianity, and he said, w Yes, try it." "Taste and see 
that the Lord is good." As you go, you will be cleansed. 

A young woman left her home to go and see her pas- 
tor to ask him to point her to Christ. She was concerned 
about her sins and salvation. As she stepped on the 
street car she met three of her most intimate friends. 
Something said to her, "Do not tell them where you 
are going/ y and something else said, "Tell them, and 
ask them to go with you." Finally she went over and 
sat by them, and they asked her where she was going. 
She said, "Girls, I have made up mind to be a christian, 
and I am going to see our minister and ask him if he will 
show me how. I wish you would go with me." They 



86 AS THEY WENT. 

declined to go, and she went alone. She came to the 
minister's house, and rang the bell. He came to the 
door himself, and she stood there hesitating a minute, 
and then she said, " Doctor, I started to come to see you 
to ask you to lead me to Christ, but now that I have come 
I want to tell you that I have found Christ." As she 
went, she was cleansed. 

Now, reader, are you willing to say that you will 
make an honest effort to do the will of God ? Are you 
willing to say that so far as you receive the light you 
will act up to the light ? 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

BY 
JOHN MCNEILL- 



"Now, Naaman, captain of the host of the king of 
Syria, was a great man with his master, and honorable, 
because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto 
Syria; he was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a 
leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies and 
had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a 
little maid; and she waited on Naaman' s wife. And she 
said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with 
the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him 
of his leprosy. And one went in and told his lord, say- 
ing: Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of 
Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I 
will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he 
departed and took with him ten talents of silver, and six 
thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. 
And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, 
Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have 
therewith sent Naaman, my servant, to thee that thou 
mayest recover him of the leprosy. And it came to pass, 
when the king had read the letter, that he rent his 
clothes and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, 
that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his 
leprosy? Wherefore consider, I pray you, how he seek- 
eth a quarrel against me? And it was so, when Elisha 
the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent 



88 NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore 
hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and 
he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. 

1 'So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot 
and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha 
sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jor- 
dan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, 
and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth and went 
away and said, Behold, I thought he will surely come 
out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his 
God, and strike his hand over the place and recover the 
leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, 
better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in 
them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a 
rage. And his servants came near and spake unto him 
and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee to do some 
great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much 
rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean? 
Then went he down and dipped himself seven times in 
Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and 
his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, 
and he was clean/ * 

LEPROSY, A TYPE OF SIN. 

Leprosy is a type of sin. How much teaching there 
is in the type, you and I scarcely know. When I 
preached once on "the cleansing of one of the New Testa 
ment lepers," I said I thought the sight of a leper would 
greatly tend to quicken and give practical meaning in 
our minds to all Bible teaching about the exceeding sin- 
fulness of sin. I have since seen a returned missionary 
who described to me what leprosy really is and the awful 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 89 

effect which the first acquaintance with it has upon 
one's eyes and heart and understanding. The bulk 01 
people have not seen it; but let us understand that 
leprosy is one of the Bible's representatives of the intense 
malignity and defilement of the mortal malady that has 
attacked you and me, namely, Sin. Naaman, then, was 
a typical man, a man afflicted and covered with this 
typical disease; and we have to follow the turnings and 
windings of the narrative, in order to see how this typi- 
cal sinner fares when he comes into contact with the 
Lord God Almighty, the only God of grace and salvation 
for a leprous sinner. 

THE DEPTH OF OUR NEED. 

Notice how the Bible puts this doctrine of the depth oj 
our ?ieed as represented in the disease of leprosy. Many 
people are stumbled at it. The vision of a leper is a ser- 
mon to every one who sees him, as to what sin is in its 
insidious, but mortal and ( but for one cure ) incurable 
ravages upon the inner man, the soul within us. I am 
stating the doctrine roughly, harshly. I may so put it 
as to state it, as you think, in a somewhat unbalanced 
way. Do not blame the Bible. The Bible is wonder- 
fully considerate. As it states the case of Naaman, so it 
is willing to state the case of every one. It puts it, but 
see how softly it puts it: "Now Naaman, captain of the 
host of the king of Syria" — it admits that he was a cap- 
tain — "was a great man" — the Bible admits that he was 
great — "and honorable" — the Bible admits that — 
"because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto 
Syria" — quite a special man. "He was also a mighty man 
in valor;" — a good general: perhaps the only general. 



90 MA AM AN, THE SYRIAN. 

The Bible admits that; but making all admissions, and 
taking in everything by the way, it does say, and it 
dares to say, and it insists upon saying — "but he was a 
leper/' As it is put there, so I would like to put it here. 
You are amiable. I grant that you are amiable. You 
are not a drunkard, or a harlot, or a debauchee. I am 
willing to admit it; but at the bottom, the last analysis 
of all that you are, yields this, that you are a sinner: you 
are a leper. That is the last analysis. Taken into God's 
scales, tested in His crucibles, weighed in His balances, 
here is the end, but he was a leper." Amiable, but an 
amiable sinner; refined, a refined sinner; wealthy, a 
wealthy sinner; a peer of the realm, a sinner as regards 
your spiritual condition. 

The Bible makes all allowances. It is not rude; it 
takes everything into consideration, but it will not speak 
false words. It will not say " peace' ? when there is no 
peace. It will not give you a clean bill and allow you to 
come into port when you ought to be riding quarantine 
because there is infectious disease on board. The Bible 
will be honest with you and while it makes all admis- 
sions, on certain grounds as to what differentiates you 
from other people who are dishonorable and dishonest 
and have broken vows outwardly it goes straight into the 
conscience and says, "After all, you are a sinner, you 
are smitten with an incurable disease which knows no 
remedy save one, the knowledge and experience of which 
come not from earth but straight and miraculously from 
heaven." 

THE MEANS OF GRACE. 

"And the Syrians had gone out by companies and had 
brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little 



NAAMAN X THE SYRIAN. 91 

maid." Now, does it not look as if this were a round- 
about road to the well? After all this about Xaaman — 
and who he was — and what was wrong with him, we are 
off to the Syrians. 

What about them, and what about this little maid 
who waited on Xaaman's wife? Ah, out of little events 
great events come. Large doors turn upon small hinges; 
and such a thing as this wonderful story of God's gra- 
cious dealing with poor Xaaman turns upon that 
seemingly trivial incident that a marauding, thieving 
band of Syrians, when the}' crossed the borders and went 
into Israel, and took away captive this little maid. They 
"builded better than they knew." I can imagine that 
the band of Syrians came back, and all their booty was a. 
little maid. Oh, how their companions laughed at 
them! It seemed to have been a poor excursion, a great 
deal of toil and trouble and effort for very little, when 
the}' came back with only this little girl. "Who hath 
despised the day of small things?" Xo wise man. 
Fools do it every day. Do not despise little folk. Do 
not despise small things. Do not despise the day 
of little things. What a great work this little 
maid did! She has found for herself a conspicuous place 
in the picture-gallery of God's Word. She shall be 
exhibited to all eternity. Were there not kings and 
queens and mighty men that burnt and blazed and 
paraded for a little, and then went down to dusty death? 
Their name and their memorial have perished with them. 
But that little lass, a stranger in a strange land, away 
there in Syria, lives for ever in the imperishable record of 
the Word of God. 



92 NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

"She waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto 
her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet 
that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his lep- 
rosy. And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus 
and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel." 
What a simple testimony she bore, but what a splendid 
preacher she was! She had all the qualifications of a 
first-rate, successful preacher. She had a message, and 
she spoke it simply, directly, and with great assurance. 
She spoke what she knew. There was a ring of sincerity 
and conviction in what she said, and it told on her mis- 
tress. God grant that my words may tell on some body 



now! 



the simple gospel. 



Now, the same thing is working in and through the 
Gospel yet. On the surface it seems to be a weak, fool- 
ish, despised and despicable thing — the word of a 
witless lassie against all the misery and blighting power 
of leprosy. But God has chosen the weak things, the 
base things, things that are despised to do His work, to 
bring to naught things that are, to save souls, to give 
to Him eternal fame and honor. 

Do we know this Gospel ? Do we know the prophet 
that is in Israel — no longer Elisha, but the Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Prophet of prophets, the King and L,ord and 
Head of them all, the Incarnation and Embodiment of all 
healing power and spiritual virtue ? Then, if we know 
Him, let us not only know Him in our hearts, but let us 
simply and sincerely testify for Him, and He will spread 
our testimony on the wings of the wind, and make it tell 
as He did with this little girl. " One went in and told his 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 93 

lord." The king of Syria writes to the king of Israel.' 
Crowns sometimes drop upon very unworthy heads. 
Both of these kings cut very sorry figures, do they not ? 
The king of Syria was going to do it all, and he said, 
" Go to, go, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. 
And Naaman departed, and took with him ten talents 
of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes 
of raiment.' ' How this poor girl's little simple gospel 
is being spoiled ! Did she say a single word about kings, 
or about talents of silver, or about changes of raiment ? 
Then see how they have corrupted the simplicity of her 
simple testimony. 

What did they make of it ? He brought the letter to 
the king of Israel, saying, "Now when this letter is come 
unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent my servant, 
Naaman, to thee that thou mayst recover him of the lep- 
rosy. And when the king of Israel had read the letter, 
he rent his clothes and said, Am I God, to kill and to 
make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a 
man of his leprosy?' ' 

There are some things that kings and councillors and 
parliaments cannot do. This is one of them; they are 
utterly at their wits' end, and God will not give this 
glory but in one way, and this blessing but along a par- 
ticular line. One thing does come out of it clearly, and 
that is the emphasizing of the point with which I began. 
Leprosy evidently was regarded as incurable. " Con- 
sider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel 
against me. Am I God, to kill and to make alive?" Oh, 
that we had the same notion to-day about sin ! Oh, that 
men and women were revived to a simple and intense 
conviction of this : ' * Sin is incurable : there is no remedy 



94 NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

except the heavenly, the supernatural ! * ' Where is the 
wiseman's wisdom? Where is all the power of kings 
and lords and princes and councillors to save a sinner ? 
It is reduced to utter contempt. 

THK POWKR OF GOD. 

1 ' And it was so, when Elisha, the man of God had 
heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he 
sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy 
clothes ? let him come now to me, and he shall know that 
there is a prophet in Israel/ ' Does not that look a little 
like boasting at first ? " Let him come to me." Yes, it 
is boasting, but it is boasting of the right kind. When a 
man boasts in God, "the humble hear thereof, and are 
glad." The meek hear of a testimony like this, and 
instead of being offended at it, and calling it vainglory, 
they glory in it ; for Elisha is here lifting up, not him- 
self, but the God who gave him all the power that he had. 
Let us challenge the world's need and the world's prob- 
lem. Let us call upon men and women to come and 
look our way, and give us a trial. You ran here and ran 
there, and ran the other where to get rid of your leprosy. 
Now, have you got soul peace, and power, and strength? 
Then, if not, will you come at length to us ? In myself 
I am poor and weak and vile and nothing ; but I dare to 
say, that I preach a gospel which could change every 
sinner as mightily as was Naaman before Elisha had done 
with him. Oh, that God would revive us preachers in 
a simple faith in the message we have to deliver ! After 
all, things are at a very sad pass. There is awful trouble 
in the land, an awful problem, and we cannot solve it, 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 95 

The power of the state, and the power of the world's 
wisdom, and the power of the world's deepest 
sympathy seem to make no more impression on it 
than the king's advice and the king's sympathy made 
upon the sickness of his beloved general. But yet there 
is balm in Gilead, and the problem is not so insoluble as 
we think, and the distress is not so dire : for there is one 
voice rising sharp and clear above the Babel voices of a 
thousand counsellors, who are darkening counsel by words 
without knowledge. And this is the voice — " Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and 
thy house ! " It is a message straight from Jesus Christ 
who died and rose again. 

"So Naaman came with his horses" — they were not 
lepers, but he fetched them — " and with his chariot, and 
stood at the door of the house of Elisha." Now, Elisha, 
you are on your trial. You were never in such a peril- 
ous place before, after all that has been said about Israel 
and Israel's God. How men criticise the gospel ! Will 
they at length open their eyes ? Will they at last cease 
from criticising, cease from pulling themselves up all 
their inches and strutting and spreading, and accept the 
Gospel as helpless lepers as they should do. As God is 
my witness, I do believe that if you have not been washed 
in the blood of Christ, Naaman for loathsomeness is but a 
po or picture of your condition in the sight of God. 

No, Elisha was not on his trial, nor God; but Naaman 
was on trial, and he did not come through it very well at 
first. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and 
wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again 
to thee and thou shalt be clean." But Naaman was 
wroth and went away, and you remember what he said, 



96 NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

"Behold, I thought he would surely come to me.' ' To 
me. "Granted that I am a leper, but I am not an 
ordinary leper. I am a general, a prince. I am here with 
these jingling horses and chariots; may he deal thus with 
me?" 

Have you never witnessed this rage? Is it not in your 
veins at this moment? After all, the worst kind of a 
gospel-hearer is that one who comes and goes, and comes 
and goes, and you never find him either sad, or glad, or 
mad — never. There they are, like a ditch without fall 
or flood — like the Mediterranean, without ebb or flow — 
at the one fall-less and floodless, contemptible level. I 
like to see men mad. When a man like Naaman is being 
led along a line like this — when he is taken so far away 
out of his own orbit, or so far off the beaten track, so 
completely away from what he expects, when the Lord's 
message through Elisha falls upon him at an angle ot 
incidence so unexpected — I can quite understand him. I 
cannot suppose that the Lord was angry; and I do not 
suppose that Elisha was angry. They thoroughly 
understood it. They knew exactly what the effect would 
be. 

When men are wakened up from a deep sleep, and 
wakened up in a hurry because there is something 
urgent and imminent, they often wake up cross — they often 
wake up angry. I suppose that if I were to come to you 
to-morrow morning, with all your amiability and your 
sweetness and your gentleness, and seized you by the hand, 
and put my hand on your shoulder and shook you rudely 
and woke you up, when you arose you would not have all 
your ' Tolite Letter Writer" phrases just ready at the 
time. You would be likely to be a little indignant, and 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 97 

you would be likely to think that I was very inconsider- 
ate. But if in the midst of all your ruffledness and all 
your anger I showed you that I had a just cause for what 
I had done, and that there was a fire, and that the fire 
was not in the next street or even in the next house, but 
was in your own house, I think when you got to know 
that, you would thank me, and you would say that if I 
had been polite, and had stood upon ceremony, I should 
not have been your friend. So with the gospel preachers, 
so with Elisha. Poor Naaman was far gone, and what 
he needed was quick medicine; what he needed was 
something which went straight to the point. I grant 
there was seeming rudeness in the wording; I grant there 
was imperiousness, for when God speaks you must allow 
him to be imperious and imperial — never forget that. The 
gospel does beseech, but in it all and through it all the 
gospel is a command, and you disobey it at peril of eter- 
nal damnation. Believe, repent, go work, and go as 
quickly as you can, that is the gospel — a command; and 
it is to your interest, Oh sinner, that the gospel is on 
the surface seemingly rude and inconsiderate and 
unjust. 

THE LEPROSY OF PRIDE. 

Naaman was wroth and said, "I thought.' ' That is 
what is wrong with most of us. Why are you not a 
happy Christian? I will tell you in a word. You are 
troubled with just the same disease as Naaman. Leprosy 
was his trouble outwardly, and the leprosy of pride was 
his trouble inwardly. He needed to be humbled before 
he could be healed. Now, your pride is very likely intel- 
lectual pride, intellectual vanity, intellectual conceit. 



98 NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

You juggle with the names of Huxley and Spencer and 
Darwin, and you want to impress and overawe the poor 
preacher with a sense of your opinion, and you say, ; 
"When I go to hear a sermon, I think and I wish and I 
like;" and when you do not get what you like, the 
preacher gets your ugliest verdict. Now, my dear friend, 
come away from that, if you please. You are a poor, 
helpless, hopeless, condemned sinner; until you receive 
the gospel in childlike simplicity, you cannot be saved; 
you are neither fit to live not fit to die, and you have 
both to do, so do come down off your horse of pride and 
headiness and high-mindedness and self-conceit. Forget 
your wisdom and forget your knowledge, and remember 
that in all past ages, and even in this nineteenth century, 
thanks to God, wise men and learned who have forgotten 
more about literature and science and philosophy than 
you ever learnt, have with all their knowledge, contrived 
to be as simple, genuine, evangelical believers in the 
blood of the Lamb as any that ever lived. You ' 'thought. ' ' 
Thank you for nothing. What did you think? Let us 
hear it. Well, here it is: "I thought that he would 
surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of 
the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and 
recover me of the leprosy." That is, "I thought that he 
was a trickster and a juggler, and that he would come 
and say, 'Hey! Presto! Pass!' and the thing would be 
done." Yes, is not that about the length and breadth 
and depth and height, my friend, of your notions of what 
genuine religion is? The thoughts of people in Naaman's 
condition — oh, they are worth little! Naaman spoke out 
his thought, and there it is. When salvation comes to 
us, it comes when we get rid of our own thought, or we 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 99 

holdin our own thought, whatever it may be, and we choke 
it down, and we allow God to speak; for God's thoughts 
are what we need to know; and God says, "My thoughts 
are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways, 
for as the heaven is high above the earth, so are My 
thoughts higher than your thoughts, and My ways than 
your ways." Oh, hush, be still, and know that God is 
here— that God is speaking, and that you ought to bow 
the head and keep silence and believe! 

"Are not Abana and Pharpar— ? '" Oh, yes! With 
what contempt men sometimes speak of the gospel until 
they have tried it. 

THK OLD GOSPEL. 

Naaman dear, if Abana and Pharpar were waters that 
would have cleansed you, why did you not go to them ? 
Why did you come here at all ? Have not some of us 
spoken in the same rude and contemptuous way about 
what we call old, narrow-minded, bigoted, Puritanical 
doctrines, until we have tried them? But when the day 
came when our sins were fastening upon us, and the 
sorrows of death compassed us, and the gates of hell got 
hold upon us and we found trouble and sorrow, then we 
changed our tune. When we were heart-whole and well, 
we could speak contemptuously about the old gospel and 
call it a "doctrine of the shambles' ' — this salvation by 
blood; but when we stand naked and shivering, and 
ready to perish, then this old gospel of the cross, the 
gospel of salvation through the doing and dying of 
another, is to us like a peal of heaven's own music. Do 
not talk against the gospel, my friend. You are only 



ioo NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 

showing your want of heart or the depth of your ignor- 
ance. 

"And his servants came near and spoke and said, 
If the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst 
thou not have done it? How much rather when he 
said, Wash and be clean ! Then went he down and dip- 
ped himself seven times in the Jordan,' ' verbatim et liter- 
atim according to the saying of the man of God. He had 
to humble himself to obey the gospel and you and I must 
do the same. We do not give up intellectuality and the 
powers of the mind. We simply crucify their pride, that 
is all. 

BLESSING COMBS BY OBEDIENCE. 

"And his flesh came unto him like the flesh of a little 
child and he was clean.' ' This is the gospel. Will you 
try it? Will you do, my friend, what you never did before ? 
Will you humble yourself simply to believe ? The gos- 
pel will never prove its power in anybody as long as he 
criticises and questions. The gospel is for believing; 
the gospel is for receiving. "Oh, taste and see that the 
Lord is good: blessed is the man who trusteth in Him." 
At last Naaman is a sadder and a wiser man. He is 
kindly spoken to by his servant. Naaman had his good 
points about him. But after all, you see, there was the 
leprosy. There was no arguing against that. There 
was this sentence of death eating into him. So with 
you, man, you are dying while you are criticising; hell 
opens its mouth to receive you while you are quibbling 
and wanting another gospel to suit you. Do not forget 
that. It does not become beggars to be choosers; and 
you are an absolute beggar at heaven's gate — an absolute 



NAAMAN, THE SYRIAN. 101 

dependent upon God's bounty; and when it is offered to 
you, it ill becomes you to adopt the sneer or the angry 
tone which you do adopt. Let us cease from all such 
superfluity of naughtiness, and in simplicity, like the 
poor, dying lepers that we are, let us receive salvation 
through Jesus Christ, through His atonement. 

That dark, muddy Jordan was not a nice stream. It 
was really a very poor river from an artistic point of 
view; but it was in Israel, it was an Israelitish river; and 
away to it Naaman must go, great man and all as he 
was. And he went. He swallowed down his pride. He 
very likely said to himself, "Well, that servant of mine 
is true; he is right; I am a leper, and of course I am 
dying, and after all, I may as well try it. It would be a 
pity to come all this distance, with all these jingling 
horses and chariots, and go home, and admit that I had 
come on a fool's errand: and maybe there is something in 
it." And he went down. He "stooped to conquer ", 
and he conquered by stooping; he gave in to God, and he 
won. For a time he seemed to be no better, only much wet- 
ter. But, dipping seven times, when he came up the 
seventh time he had left his leprosy in the last plunge. 
The flesh came to him as with that leper in the New 
Testament to whom Christ said, "Be thou made clean ,, ; 
and immediately he was made whole. As the poet says: 

" And his dry palms grew moist, 

And the blood coursed with delicious coolness through his veins, 

And on his brow the dewy softness of an infant stole. 

His leprosy was cleansed and he fell down 

At Jesus' feet, and worshipped him." 

This is the gospel for lepers, Old Testament and 



102 N A AM AN, THE SYRIAN. 

New. Come near to the cleansing fountain, and' in abso- 
lute abject simplicity plunge into it. 

"There is a fountain filled with blood, / 

Drawn from Emanuel's veins; 
And sinner9 plunged beneath that flood 
Lose all their guilty stains." 

I trust I have read a book or two. I hope I know a 
little about philosophy. I trust I know a little about 
science. I went for eight winters to a college and a 
divinity hall, and I was lectured and taught by the most 
cultured and eminent men of the day. But if to-morrow I 
am upon my death-bed, and if you want to come and give 
me a parting word, come, and I will tell you before you 
come what you may say. Do not mention this nineteenth 
century; do not mention these new gospels, which are no 
gospels. If you have no word, and if you have no text, 
that old hymn that I have quoted will do, and especially 
the verse that I am going to quote now: 

"The dying thief rejoiced to see 
That fountain in his day: 
And there may I, though vile as he, 
Wash all my sins awaj ." 

Ah, my lad, you may despise this old gospel, but your 
mother died rejoicing in it. So did your father. And if 
you are ever to see them and meet with them, if you are 
ever to sit down with the truly refined people, you must be 
washed in the blood of the Lamb. May the L,ord, the 
Spirit, graciously plead His own cause, and may all of us 
come to the simplicity of faith in Jesus Christ, who died 
for our sins, and rose again for our justification ! 



OBEDIENCE. 

u 

D. I,. "MOODY. 



81 And being made perfect, he became the anthor of eternal 
salvation unto all them that obey him." — Heb. v: 9. 

My subject is one that you will not like very well, 
but I found out a long time ago that the medicine we 
don't like is the best medicine for us. If there is any- 
thing that throws a coldness over a meeting, it is to talk 
about obedience. You can talk about love and heaven 
and other things, and people get so warmed that they 
shout; but when you talk about obedience, there is a 
sort of coldness over the meeting. Like a man I heard 
of during the time of slavery. He was preaching with 
great power, (he was a slave), and his master heard of it 
and said, "I understand you are preaching, and they 
tell me you are preaching with great power." "Yes," 
said the slave. "Well, now," said the master, "I will 
give you all the time you want, and you prepare a ser- 
mon on the commandments and preach on the command- 
ments, and bear down on stealing, for there is a great 
deal of stealing on the plantation.' ' The man's coun- 
tenance fell at once. He said he wouldn't like to do 
that; there wasn't the warmth in it there was in some 
things. And I have always noticed when you come 
right down to such matters, people don't like to be told 
about them, because it comes a little too near home. 



104 OBEDIENCE. 

Once I heard about a young minister who took the place 
of an old pastor, and he began to bear down pretty hard 
upon the sins of the people. A man came to him afterwards 
and said, "Look here, young man, if you expect to 
hold this pulpit you have got to stop that kind of preaching, 
for the people won't stand it.'' There are a good many 
people that are delighted when you talk about the sins 
of the patriarchs, and the sins of other Bible characters, 
but when you touch upon the sins of to-day, that is another 
thing. They say, "I don't like his style." No, nor his 
matter either, and perhaps you won't like this subject of 
obedience. 

We are told that without faith it is impossible to please 
God, and you will find that it is impossible to please 
God without obedience. Your faith doesn't amount to 
much without obedience. "And being made perfect, He 
became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that 
obey Him." Eternal salvation unto all them that obey 
Him; not all them that feel Him, talk to Him, that say, 
"Lord, Lord," but them that obey Him. Eternal salva- 
tion means eternal safety. 

AU, BUT THE HEART OF MAN OBEYS GOD. 

Did you ever notice all but the heart of man obeys God? 
If you look right through history, you will find that 
this is true. In the beginning God said, "Let there be 
light," and there was light. "Let the waters bring 
forth," and the water brought forth abundantly. And 
one of the proofs that Jesus Christ is God is that He 
spoke to nature, and nature obeyed Him. At one time 
He spoke to the sea, and the sea recognized and obeyed 
Him. He spoke to the fig tree, and instantly it withered 
and died. It obeyed literally and at once. He spoke to 



OBEDIENCE. 105 

devils, and the devils fled. He spoke to the grave, and 
the grave obeyed Him and gave back its dead. But 
when He speaks to man, man will not obey Him; that is 
why man is out of harmony with God, and it will never 
be different until men learn to obey God. God wants 
obedience and He will have it, or else there will be no 
harmony. In the first epistle of John, we read, "And 
the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that 
doeth the will of God abideth forever. He says in 
another place that if we keep His sayings we shall never 
die. The world is like a floating island and as surely as 
we anchor to it, we will be carried away by it. 

NEAR TO GOD. 

Now, if you want to get near God, just obey Him; 
that is the quickest way to get near Him. He takes 
those into the nearest communion with Himself who obey 
Him. Once while Jesus talked to the people, behold, 
His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to 
speak unto Him. Then one said unto Him, * 'Behold, thy 
mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak 
with thee." But He answered and said unto him that 
told Him, ' 'Who is My mother? and who are My brethren? ' ' 
And He stretched His hand toward His disciples and 
said, "Behold My mother and My brethren! for whoso- 
ever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, 
the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.' ' There 
is no friendship without obedience. The truest sign that 
we love God is that we obey Him. "I do love God," a 
little girl said to her father one day, when he was speak- 
ing to her about loving God. "Perhaps you think you 
do, dear/' said the father. "But I do." "Suppose you 
should come to me and say, Tapa, I love you/ and then 



106 OBEDIENCE. 

run off and disobey me, could I believe you?" The child 
said "No." ''Well, continued the father, "how can I 
believe that you love God when I see you every day doing' 
things that He forbids?" "If ye love me, keep my com- 
mandments/ ' 

It isn't a matter of feeling or picking out things we like 
to do, but it is doing what He commands us to do. Now 
notice, Adam lost everything by disobedience, and the 
second Adam gained everything by obedience. "For as 
by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so 
by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous/ ■ 

TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE. 

Let me call your attention to another portion of Scrip- 
ture. ' 'And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight 
in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice 
of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, 
and to hearken than the fat of rams." God doesn't 
want sacrifice, if there is disobedience. If we are 
living in disobedience to God, that is no sacrifice, it is 
sacrilege. If Adam and Eve had obeyed God, there 
would have been no need of sacrifices of any kind. Many 
men want to bring Him a sacrifice, instead of obeying 
Him. What does your w 7 ork of charity amount to, if you 
are not obedient? Do you think that you can gain 
heaven by sacrificing your money or your time? "To 
obey is better than sacrifice." 

Suppose a father sends his boy to school and he plays 
truant. He says, "I don't want to go to school, " 
and he goes off and fishes all day. He knows his father 
is very fond of trout. He says, "I know I have been 
disobedient, but I can sell these trout for fifty cents, and I 
will just take them home to my father. It will be a great 



OBEDIENCE. 107 

sacrifice, but it will please my father. Do you think 
that will please him? Not by a good deal. He wants 
obedience, and until his son obeys, his sacrifice is an 
abomination. The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomi- 
nation to God and man. Don't let any man deceive 
himself and think he is going to please God by giving 
something to Him when he is living in disobedience. 

Men say to me, ''You talk against that gambler but he 
is very good to the poor, ' - and they think he is going to 
merit heaven because he is good to the poor. "God will 
have to remember him." My dear friend, as long as he 
is living a disobedient life, he cannot do a thing to please 
God. That boy cannot please his father until he is 
willing to obey and do the very thing he was told to do. 
It is much easier to bring a lamb or bullock to the altar 
than it is to bring ourselves. Do you know it? I remem- 
ber hearing a story about an Indian who wanted to come 
to the Lord. He brought his blanket, but the Lord wouldn't 
have it. He brought his gun, his dog, his bow and arrow, 
but the Lord wouldn't have them; but at last he brought 
himself and the Lord took him. The Lord wanted him- 
self. What the Lord wants is not what you have got, but 
yourself, and you cannot do a thing to please God 
until you surrender yourself to Him. 

Take the two Sauls. They lived about 1000 years 
apart. One started out well and ended poorly, and the 
other started out poorly and ended well. The first Saul 
got a kingdom and a crown ; he had a lovely family, (no 
father ever had a better son than Saul had in Jonathan); 
he had the friendship of Samuel, the best prophet there 
was on the face of the earth ; and yet he lost the friend- 
ship of Samuel, lost his crown, his kingdom and his life, 



108 OBEDIENCE, 

all through an act of disobedience. God took the crown 
from his brow and put another man in his place. Why $ 
Because he disobeyed. All his kingly dignity and power 
could not excuse him. Now take the Saul of the New 
Testament. When God called him he wasn't disobedient 
to the heavenly vision, and he w r as given a heavenly 
kingdom. One act of obedience, one act of dis- 
obedience. The act of obedience gained all, and the 
act of disobedience lost everything. And so you will 
find right through the Scriptures this is taking place con- 
stantly. I believe the wretchedness and misery and woe 
in our American cities to-day comes from disobedience to 
God. If they won't obey God as a nation, let us begin 
individually. L,et us make up our minds that we will do 
it, cost us what it will, and you will have peace and joy. 

A BLESSING OR A CURSE. 

In the book of Deuteronomy, we read, "Behold, I set 
before you this day a blessing and a curse ; a blessing, if 
ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God which 
I command you this day ; and a curse if ye will not obey 
the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside* 
out of the way I command you this day, to go after other 
gods, which ye have not known." Isn't that enforced? 
A man who serves God, isn't the blessing of God resting 
upon him ? There is great reward in keeping God's laws 
and statutes, but a great curse upon them that disobey 
God. A lawyer once gave a client instructions what to 
do, but the latter did not follow them and lost his case. 
When he complained to his lawyer, ' ' Well, ' ' said he, 
" you did not do what I told you." L,ook at the wives 
and mothers that have gone right against the law of God 



OBEDIENCE. 109 

and married ungodly men and drunkards. See what 
hells they are living in to-day ! Just one act of disobed- 
ience. They are suffering tortures day by day, dying by 
inches. The whole country is more or less cursed by 
this disobedience. A mother told me up in Minnesota 
that she had a little child who took a book and threw it 
out of the window. She told him to go and pick it up. 
The little boy said, "I won't." Shesaid, "What?" He 
said again, "I won't." She said, " You will. You go 
and pick up that book." He said he couldn't do it. She 
took him out and she held him right to it. Dinner time 
came and he hadn't picked up the book. She took him 
to dinner, and after it was over she took him out again. 
They sat there until tea-time. When tea-time came she 
took him in and gave him his supper, and then took him 
out and kept him there until bed-time. The next morn- 
ing she went out again and kept him there until dinner- 
time. He found he was in for a life job, and he picked 
the book up. She said she never had any trouble with 
the child afterwards. Mothers, if you don't make your 
boy obey when he is young, he will break your heart. 

You say, " Cannot God make a man obey ?" I suppose 
He could but He does not work on those lines. He isn't 
going to force you against your will. He is going to draw 
you by the cords of love, but if you are not going to obey 
Him, then you are going to suffer. God made man 
neither obedient nor disobedient ; and man must choose 
for himself. As Dr. Parker says, ' ' A child can treat God 
with sulkiness and silence. The tiniest knee can stiffen 
and refuse to bow before Him., , 

1 'Strive to enter in at the strait gate." "I will not." 
"L,ook unto me and be ye saved." "I will not," 



no OBEDIENCE. 

"Come unto me, and I will give you rest.' ' "I will not." 

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God." "I will not." 

"Repent." "I will not." 

"Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" "I will not." 

"Follow me." "I will not." 

"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." "I will not." 

"Give me thine heart." "I will not." 

"Go work in my vineyard." "I will not." 

"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." "I 
will not." 

"L,ay up for yourself treasures in heaven." "I will 
not." 

So we might go through the Bible, and we would find 
that rebellious man refuses to obey His commandments, 
and follows the devices and desires of his own heart. 
God made man for His glory, but he joined the devil 
and became a rebel. . 

Now this is the question to be settled. The battle 
is fought on that one word of the will; the door hangs on 
that one hinge of the will. Will you obey ? That is the 
question ! Will you obey the voice of God and do as He 
commands you ? No man can obey for you any more 
than he can eat and drink for you. You must eat and 
drink for yourself, and you must obey God for yourself. 

God requires literal, prompt, cheerful obedience. 
Nothing less will do. If you changed the doctor's pre- 
scription only a little, you might turn it into rank poison. 
A Sunday School teacher once asked her class, "How 
is the will of God done in heaven ? " One child answered, 
"Cheerfully." Another, "By everybody." A third, 
"All the time." But the best answer was, " It is done 
without asking any questions, ' ' 



OBEDIENCE, in 

DISOBEDIENCE BRINGS PUNISHMENT. 

Men don't seem to think that there is any thing in dis- 
obedience that needs to be punished. They shoot a 
soldier in the army for disobedience. 

" Their's not to reason why, 
Their's not to make reply, 
Their's but to do or die." 

It is said that an officer of engineers once told the 
Duke of Wellington it was impossible to carry out some 
orders he had given. "Sir," replied the duke, "I did 
not ask your opinion. I gave you my orders and I 
expect them to be obeyed. ' ' God never gave a command 
that we cannot obey. Perhaps we don't know the reason 
— but God knows it. 

Will not the farmer be punished if he disobeys the laws 
of nature ? and does not the same hold as regards spir- 
itual laws ? The only way to reap happiness in the life 
to come is to obey God's commandments in the life that 
now is. 

People say, " Well, don't you think it very unreason- 
able in God to punish Adam because he transgressed 
once ? ' ' Some years ago a superintendent telegraphed 
to a man not to turn the bridge over a certain river until 
a special train passed. He waited and waited and 
the man stood firm, until finally someone overpersuaded 
him and he opened the bridge. He thought he would 
have time to let the boats pass and swing the bridge back 
before the train came. But he hadn't got it more than 
opened before he heard the coming of the quick train. 
He hadn't time to get the bridge back, and there was a 
tremendous accident and lives were lost. The man went 



H2 OBEDIENCE. 

out of his mind and was sent to a madhouse, and his cry 
for years, until death released him, was: " If I only had ! 
if I only had!' ' If he only had what? If he had only 
obeyed, those lives would not have been lost. In 
England, not long ago, a switchman just turned the switch 
at the wrong time, and twenty men were hurled into 
eternity, and a good many were maimed a#d hurt for life. 
He only just disobeyed once. 

SIMPLE OBEDIENCE. 

There is a story told about Girard, one of the first 
millionaires this country ever had. A green Irishman 
came over to this country, and he had been walking 
round the streets of Philadelphia for a long time, unable 
to get anythingtodo. One day he went into Girard's office 
and asked him if he couldn't give him something to do to 
keep soul and body together. Girard said, "Yes; do you 
see that pile of bricks down there?" "Yes." "Well, 
pile it up at the other end of the yard." The Irishman 
went to work. Night came on and he had the work all 
done, and he went into the office, touched his hat, 
got his pay, and asked if Girard had any work for him 
the next morning. Girard told him he had. The next 
morning became along. Girard said, * 'You go and carry 
that pile of bricks back to where you found it." 
The Irishman went at the work without a word. Night 
came on, he got his pay and wanted to know if there 
would be work for him the next morning. Girard kept 
him marching up and down there for a number of days, 
until he found he was just the man he wanted. One day 
he said, "You go down and bid that sugar off." When 
the auctioneer put the sugar up, here was a green Irish- 



OBEDIENCE. 113 

man bidding. The people laughed and made sport of 
him, and finally it was knocked off to him. The auc- 
tioneer said in a gruff tone, ' 'Who is going to pay for 
this sugar?" "Girard, sir." "You Girard' s agent?" 
Mighty man then! Girard had found a man he could 
trust; God wants to find a man He can trust to obey Him. 

BLESSED BY OBEDIENCE. 

Do you know every man who was blessed while Christ 
was on earth, was blessed in the act of obedience? Ten 
lepers came to Him, and He said, ' 'Go and show yourselves 
to the priest. ' ' They might have said, ' 'What good is that 
going to do us? It was the priest that sent us away from 
our families. ' ' But they said nothing; and it came to 
pass, that, as they went, they were healed. Do you 
want to get rid of the leprosy of sin? Obey God. You 
say you don't feel like it. Did you always feel like go- 
ing to school when you were a boy? Supposing a man 
only went to business when he felt like it; he would fail 
in a few weeks. Jesus said to another man, ' 'Go to the Pool 
of Siloam and wash, ! ' and as he washed, he received his 
sight. He was blessed in the act of obedience. The 
prophet said to Naaman, "Go and dip seven times in 
Jordan," and while he was dipping he was healed. 
Simple obedience. You don't need to go to any theo- 
logical seminary to find out how to obey, need you? 
Old Matthew Henry used to say, "If you live by the 
Gospel precepts, you may live on the Gospel promises." 
To know the truth and not to obey it is unprofitable. It 
said over fifty times of Moses that he did "as the L,ord com- 
manded him." T^t was why Moses had the confidence 
of God. 



ii 4 OBEDIENCE. 

ETERNAL SALVATION. 

If you want eternal salvation you can have it now. 
The terms are right here. What are they? Obedience. 

"This is his commandment, That we should believe 
on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ." 

"He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he 
that believeth not is condemned already because he hath 
not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of 
God." If you disobey, you shut the only door of hope. 
You may make a profession of Christianity, you may 
join the church, you may know the doctrine, but unless 
you hearken unto God's commandments, it will all be of 
no avail. 

Will you obey? You have got to settle this thing in your 
mind. Just make up your mind that you are going to 
obey. Nothing very mysterious about it. You needn't 
go to any old musty library to read up on obedience, need 
you? If God tells you to repent, then repent. This 
will be the grandest day you have ever seen if you make 
up your mind to obey Him. Will you do it? 

Reader, decide now. In olden times, when a Roman 
ambassador came to a king who was not allied to the 
Empire, he said, ' 'Will you have peace with Rome or not?' ' 
If the king asked for time to think it over, the ambassador 
used, with his rod, to draw a ring around the man, and 
say, "You must decide before you step out of that circle; 
for if you do not say 'peace* before you cross the line, 
Rome will crush you with her armies. ' ' Do not trespass 
any longer on God's mercy. "Choose you this day whom 
ye will serve.' ' 

This life will not last for ever. The trumpet will one 
day sound and call you forth from your narrow bed. 



OBEDIENCE. 115 

The graves will be opened and you will be summoned 
forth to meet your God. The proud heart that scoffs at 
religion down here will be compelled to listen to the 
judgment sentence of God. The ears that will not obey 
the sound of the church-going bell will be compelled Xo 
obey the sound of the last trumpet. The eyes that 
behold evil here shall one day gaze upon tL\e spotless 
throne of God. Do not for ever disobey. May God help 
you to submit without delay your proud wiU Ik loving, 
childlike obedience to Himself, 



THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 

BY 
REV- T. DKWITT TAI.MAGE. 



1 'According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which 
was committed to my trust." — I Tim. i: n. 

The greatest novelty of our time is the Gospel. It is 
so old that it is new. As potters and artists are now 
attempting to fashion pitchers and cups and curious ware 
like those of nineteen hundred years ago, recently 
brought up from buried Pompeii, and such cups and 
pitchers and curious ware are universally admired, so 
anyone who can unshovel the real Gospel from the 
mountains of stuff under which it has been buried, will 
be able to present something that will attract the gaze, 
and admiration, and adoption of all the people. Amaz- 
ing substitutes have been presented for what my text 
calls, "The Glorious Gospel." There are many people 
in this and all other large assemblages who have no more 
idea of what the Gospel really is than they have of what is 
contained in the fourteenth chapter of * 'Zend-Avesta, ! 9 the 
Bible of the Hindoo. There is no philosophy about it. 
It is a plain, matter of Bible statement, and of childlike 
faith. The ablest theological professor is a Christian 
mother, who, out of her own experience, can tell the four- 
year-old how beautiful Christ was on earth, and how 
beautiful He now is in heaven, and how dearly He loves 



n8 THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 

little folks, and then she kneels down and puts one arm 
around the boy, and with her somewhat faded cheek 
against the roseate cheek of the little one, consecrates 
him for time and eternity to Him who said, ' 'Suffer little 
children to come unto me." 

There sits the dear old theologian with his table piled 
up with all the great books on Inspiration, and Exegesis, 
and Apologetics for the Almighty, and his little grand 
child coining up to him for a good-night kiss, he acciden- 
tally knocks off the biggest book from the table and it 
falls on the head of the child, of whom Christ himself 
said, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou 
hast perfected praise.' ' Ah, my friends, the Bible wants 
no apologetics. The Throne of the I^ast Judgment wants 
no apologetics. Eternity wants no apologetics. Scien- 
tists may tell us that natural light is the ' 'propagation of 
undulations in an elastic medium, and thus set in vibra- 
tory motion by the action of luminous bodies;' ' but no one 
knows what Gospel Light is until his own blind eyes by 
the touch of the Divine Spirit have opened to see the 
noon-day of pardon atfd peace. Scientists may tell us 
that natural sound is ' 'the effect of an impression made 
on the organs of hearing by an impulse of the air, caused 
by a collision of bodies, or by other means;" but those 
only know what the Gospel sound is, who have heard the 
voice of Christ directly, saying, "Thy sins are forgiven 
thee; go in peace." 

REGENERATION, NOT REFORM, 

Some think they can, by law and exposure of crime 
save the world, aud from Portland, Maine, across to San 
Francisco, and back again to New Orleans and Savannah, 



THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 119 

many have gone into the detective business. Worldly 
reform, by all means; but unless it be also Gospel reform, 
it will be dead failure. In New York, its chief work has 
been to give us a change of bosses. We had a Demo- 
cratic boss, and now it is to be a Republican boss, but 
the quarrel is, who shall be the Republican ? Politics 
will save the cities the same day that Satan evangelizes 
perdition. 

No reform will be effectual that does not begin with 
the heart. * 'I will put a new Spirit within you : and I 
will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give 
them an heart of flesh ; that they may walk in my stat- 
utes and keep my ordinances and do them; and they shall 
be my people, and I will be their God." 

Another class of people cover up the Gospel with the 
theory that it makes no final difference what you believe, 
or how you act— you are bound for heaven, anyhow. 
There they sit, side by side, in heaven: Garfield and 
Guiteau who shot him; Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth 
who assassinated him; Washington, and Thomas Paine 
who slandered him; Nana Sahib, and the missionaries 
whom he clubbed to death at Cawnpore; Herod, and the 
children whom he massacred; Paul, and Nero who be- 
headed him. As a result of the promulgation of such a 
mongrel and conglomerate heaven, there are millions of 
people in Christendom who expect to go straight to 
heaven from their seraglios, and their inebriation, and 
their suicides, when among the loudest thunders that 
break over the basaltic island to which St. John was ex- 
patriated, was the one in which God announced that 
"the abominable, and the murderers, and whoremongers, 
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have 



i2o THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 

their place in the lake which burnetii with fire and brim- 
stone, which is the second death/ \ 

Had the glorious Gospel been given full opportunity, I 
think before this the world would have had no need of 
pulpit, or sermon, or prayer, or church, but thanksgiving 
and hosannas would have resounded in the temple to 
which the mountains would have been pillars, and the 
blue skies the dome, and the rivers the baptistery, and 
all nations the worshippers in the auditorium of the out- 
spread world. But so far from that, as I remarked in 
the opening sentence of this sermon, the greatest novelty 
of our time is the Gospel. When the glorious Gospel of 
the blessed God as spoken of in my text gets full swing, 
it will have a momentum and a power mightier than that 
of the Atlantic Ocean, when under the force of the Sep- 
tember equinox it strikes the Highlands of the Navesink. 

GLORIOUS GOOD NEWS. 

The meaning of the word ''Gospel" is "good news," 
and my text says it is glorious good news, and we must 
tell it in our churches, and over our dry-goods' counters, 
and in our factories, and over our threshing machines, 
and behind our ploughs, and on our ships' decks, and in 
our parlors, our nurseries, and kitchens, as though it 
were glorious good news, and not with a dismal drawl in 
our voice, and a dismal look on our faces, as though 
religion were a rheumatic twinge, or a dyspeptic pang, 
or a malarial chill, or an attack of nervous prostration. 
With nine "blesseds" or "happys," Christ began his 
sermon on the Mount: "Blessed the poor; blessed the 
mourner; blessed the meek; blessed the hungry ; blessed 



THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 121 

the merciful ; blessed the pure; blessed the peace-makers; 
blessed the persecuted ; blessed the reviled ;" blessed, 
blessed, blessed ! happy, happy, happy 1 Glorious good 
news for the young as through Christ they may have 
their coming years ennobled, and for a life-time all the 
angels of God their coadjutors and all the armies of 
heaven their allies! Glorious good news for the middle- 
aged as through Christ they may have their perplexities 
disentangled, and their courage rallied, and their victory 
over all obstacles and hindrances made forever sure ! 
Glorious good news for the aged as they may have the 
sympathy of Him of whom St. John wrote : ' ' His head 
and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, ' ■ 
and the defence of the everlasting arms! Glorious good 
news for the dying as they may have ministering spirits 
to escort them, and opening gates to receive them, and a 
sweep of eternal glories to encircle them, and the welcome 
of a loving God to embosom them ! 

Oh, my text is right when it speaks of the glorious 
Gospel. It is an invitation from the most radiant Being 
that ever trod the earth, or ascended the heavens, to you 
and me to come and be made happy, and then take after 
that a Royal Castle for everlasting residence, the angels 
of God our cup-bearers. "Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you and learn of*me: for I am meek 
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your 
souls." "L,et not your heart be troubled : ye believe in 
God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many 
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go 
to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a 



122 THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 

place for you, I will come again and receive you unto 
myself: that where I am, there ye may be also." 

THE PRICK OF FORGIVENESS. 

The price paid for all of this on the cliff of limestone, 
about seven minutes' walk from the wall of Jerusalem, 
where with an Agony that with one hand tore down the 
*ocks, and with the other drew a midnight blackness over 
the heavens, our Lord set us forever free. Making no 
apology for any one of the million sins of our life, but con- 
fessing all of them, we can point to that cliff of limestone 
and say, "There was paid our indebtedness, and God 
never collects a bill twice." * 'There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.' ' 
" Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved 
from wrath through Him." 

Glad am I that all the Christian poets have exerted 
their pen in extolling the matchless One of this Gospel. 
Isaac Watts, how do you feel concerning Him? And he 
writes, "I am not ashamed to own my Lord." Newton, 
what do you think of this Gospel? And he writes, 
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!' ' Cowper, 
what do you think of Him? And the answer comes, 
* 'There is a fountain filled with blood." Charles Wesley, 
what do you think of Him? And he answers, "Jesus, 
lover of my soul." Horatius Bonar, what do you think 
of Him? And he responds, "I lay my sins on Jesus." 
Ray Palmer, what do you think of Him? And he writes, 
"My faith looks up to Thee." Fannie Crosby, what do 
you think of Him? And she writes, "Blessed assurance, 
Jesus is mine." But I take higher testimony: Solomon, 



TLfE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 123 

what do you think of Him? And the answer is, "Lily of 
the valley.'' Ezekiel, what do you think of Him? And 
the answer is, "Plant of renown." David, what do you 
think of Him? And the answer is, "My Shepherd." 
St. John, what do you think of Him? And the answer is, 
"Bright and morning star." St. Paul, what do you 
think of Him? And the answer comes, "Christ is all in 
all/' Do you think as well of Him, O man, O woman 
of the blood-bought immortal spirit? Yes, Paul was 
right when he styled it "The Glorious Gospel." And 
then, as a druggist, while you are waiting for him to 
make up the doctor's prescription, puts into a bottle so 
many grains of this, and so many grains of that, and so 
many drops of this, and so many drops of that, and the 
intermixture taken, though sour or bitter, restores to 
health; so Christ, the Divine Physician, prepares this 
trouble of our lifetime, and that disappointment, and this 
persecution, and that hardship, and that tear, and we 
must take the intermixture, yet though it be a bitter 
draught, under the Divine prescription it administers to 
our restoration and spiritual health, * 'all things working 
together for good." Glorious Gospel! 

And then the Royal Castle into which we step out of 
this life, without so much as soiling our foot with the 
upturned earth of the grave! "They shall reign forever 
and ever." Does not that mean that you are if saved to 
be kings and queens, and do not kings and queens have 
castles? But the One that you are offered was, for 
thirty-three years, an abandoned castle, though now 
gloriously inhabited. There is an abandoned royal cas- 
tle at Amber, India. One hundred and seventy years ago 
a king moved out of it, never to return. But the castle 



124 THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 

still stands, an indescribable grandeur, and you go 
through brazen doorway after brazen doorway, and 
carved room after carved room, and under embellished 
ceiling after embellished ceiling, and through halls, 
precious-stoned, into wider halls, precious-stoned, and on 
that hill are pavilions, deeply dyed, and tasselled, and 
arched, the fire of colored gardens cooled by the snow of 
white architecture; birds in arabesque so natural to life 
that while you cannot hear their voices you imagine you 
see the flutter of their wings while you are passing; walls, 
pictured with triumphal procession; rooms that were 
called "Alcove of Light," and "Hall of Victory ;" mar- 
ble, white and black, like a mixture of morn and night; 
alabaster, and mother-of-pearl and lacquer- work-. Standing 
before it, the eye climbs from step to latticed balcony, and 
from latticed balcony to oriel, and from oriel to arch, and 
from arch to roof, and then descends on ladders of all 
colors, and by stairs of perfect lines to tropical gardens of 
pomegranite, and pineapple. Seven stories of resplendent 
architecture! But the Royal Castle provided for you, if 
you will only take it on the prescribed terms, is grander 
than all that, and though an abandoned castle while 
Christ was here achieving your redemption, is again occu- 
pied by the "Chief among ten thousand,' ' and some of 
your own kindred who have gone up, and waiting for 
you are leaning from the balcony. The windows of that 
castle look off on the King's gardens where immortals 
walk linked in eternal friendship; and the banquetting 
hall of that castle has princes, and princesses at the 
table; and the wine is "the new wine of the kingdom," 
and the supper is the marriage supper of the Lamb; and 
there are fountains into which no tear ever fell, and there 



THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. i^ 

is music that trembles with no grief, and the light that falls 
upon that scene is never beclouded, and there is the kiss 
of those re-uuited after long separation. More nerve 
will we have there than now, or we would swoon away 
under the raptures. Stronger vision will we have there 
than now, or our eyesight would be blinded by the bril- 
liance. Stronger ears will we have there than now, or 
under the roll of that minstrelsy, and the clapping of 
that acclamation, and the boom of that hallelujah we 
would be deafened. Glorious Gospel! You thought 
religion was a strait-jacket, that it put you on the limits, 
that thereafter you must go cowed down. No, no, no! 
It is to be castellated. 

By the cleansing power of the shed blood of Golgotha, 
set your faces toward the shining pinnacles. Oh, it does 
not matter much what becomes of us here — for at the 
longest our stay is short — if we can only land there. You 
see there are so many I do want to meet there. Joshua, 
my favorite prophet; and John among the evangelists; 
and Paul among the apostles, and WyclifFe among the 
martyrs, and Bourdaloue among the preachers, and Dante 
among the poets, and Havelock among the heroes, and 
our loved ones whom we have so much missed since they 
left us, so many darlings of the heart, their absence 
sometimes almost unbearable ; and, mentioned in this 
sentence last of all, because I want the thought climacteric, 
our blessed Lord without whom we could never reach 
the old castle at all. He took our place. He purchased 
our ransom. He wept our woes. He suffered our 
stripes. He died our death. He assured our resurrec- 
tion. Blessed be his glorious name forever ! Surging tq 



126 THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 

his ear be all the anthems ! Facing him be all the 
thrones! 

Oh, I want to see it, and I will see it — the day of his 
coronation. On a throne already; methinks the day will 
come when in some great hall of eternity all the nations 
of earth whom He has conquered by His grace will as- 
semble again to crown Him. Wide and high and 
immense and upholstered as with the sunrises and sunsets 
of a thousand years, great audience room of heaven. 
Like the leaves of an Adirondack" forest the ransomed 
multitudes, and Christ standing on a high place sur- 
rounded by worshippers and subjects. They shall come 
out of the farthest past led on by the Prophets. They 
shall come out of the early Gospel days led on by the 
Apostles. They shall come out of the centuries still 
ahead of us, led on by champions of the truth, heroes 
and heroines yet to be born. 

And then from that vastest audience ever assembled in 
all the universe there will go up the shout, " Crown Him! 
Crown Him! Crown Him!" and the Father, who long 
ago promised this, his only begotten Son, "I will give 
thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost 
parts of the earth for thy possession, ' ' shall set the crown 
upon the 'forehead yet scarred with Crucifixion bramble, 
and all the hosts of heaven, down on the levels, and up in 
the galleries will drop on their knees crying, "Hail, King 
of earth! King of heaven ! King of saints! King of ser- 
aphs! Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and to 
thy dominions there shall be no end ! Amen and Amen ! 
Amen, and Amen!" 



THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. 127 

ETERNITY. 

I ask you, where will you spend eternity ? Oh, prepare 
for it. Leave it not until the last hour. Leave it not 
until you get sick. You may never be sick. Leave it not 
until you get more time. You may never get more 
time. Leave it not until you get old. You may 
never get old. Leave it not until to-morrow. This 
night thy soul may be required of thee. And, sup- 
pose, in that moment, you should say, "Wait until I 
kneel down and say my prayers." Death would respond, 
"No time now to say your prayers." "Wait until I get 
my friends together and bid them good-bye." Death 
would say, "You cannot stop to bid them good-bye." 
1 'But I cannot go into eternity with all these sins about 
me. Give me time to repent." Death would say, "Too 
late to repent ! Thy soul is required of thee this hour, 
this minute, this second!" 

Oh, by the Cross of Christ, repent! Bow your head 
this moment and say, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have 
mercy on me!" In Christ, you are safe. Out of Him 
you perish. 

THE END. 



LIBRARY 




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